Misery Amiss
by giggleplex
Summary: *HP X-over*: Two years ago, Ryou was sentenced to Azkaban for crimes he never committed. Now, after his infamous escape, old acquaintences are the only things he has left to count on, and all paths seem to lead to Hogwarts . . .
1. Prologue: Caught

*Disclaimer* - Yes, I do admit I am not a multi-millionaire and I do not own either Yu-Gi-Oh or the Harry Potter series. I do, however, own a menagerie of CDs that are mostly drenched in some serious angst. And you wonder why I'm weird.  
  
*LET THIS DISCLAIMER HOLD THROUGHOUT MY ENTIRE STORY*  
  
*****  
  
Yeah yeah, you have seen a great deal of Harry Potter crossovers lately, but I was experiencing ~horrible~ writers block on my other projects, and my recently purchased Massive Attack CD (100th Window) placed me in a melancholy, dark mood.  
  
I can assure you already, this is the beginning of a fic that will be a great contrast from the care-free fanfiction that you see normally around with this genre.  
  
Though only two YGO characters have been introduced yet, Malik, Yugi and assorted Yamis will 'for-sure' make their appearances soon. However, a majority of the plot will be dedicated to Ryou and Bakura, because they are twisted people. And coincidentally, very interesting to me (since we don't really know what Ryou's like; he's possessed most of the time).  
  
Has anyone seen RK? Think Soujiro for a brief moment.  
  
If you would like, I can mold it into a sweet shonen-ai fic, but only at a majority of reader's (if I have any at all) consent. Don't hesitate to comment honestly your opinion; this is as open as a violated book.  
  
Cheers, happy reading my friends. Or . . . not. Not yet, anyway.  
  
*****  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
The timer ~*twanged*~ an echoing note throughout the kitchen, an empty kitchen, but he had never seen it otherwise. A sigh followed it, as the boy pulled out the steaming teabag and set it near the sink.  
  
He was a feeble sort of boy.  
  
Most noticeable was his dull hair, silver as the oldest, wisest man, yet softly fluttering without wind and sporting a tenderness that most women envied. His hair was thick; useful for hiding beneath, which he took advantage of often. No one really ~knew~ Ryou Bakura, no one really ~understood~ Ryou Bakura, not that he had tried with great effort for people to understand him, as he was afraid of such an occurrence.  
  
The only one who understood him was his Yami, a possessive split- personality of sorts, and he was lucky to glimpse him out of dreaming those days.  
  
'Friends', or the closest Ryou had to friends, looked on with concern at the rest of his appearance, that sulked with dispassion in various states of malnutrition. His ribcage was easily visible, but he wore sweaters to obscure the rather unpleasant images he saw every time he looked into a mirror.  
  
Mixing a little sugar and cream into the swirly depths of his daily routine, he examined the mix with fascination, just like every other day at tea time.  
  
/Just like every other day./  
  
He didn't notice the misty sensation slightly solidifying on the opposite edge of the table before his Yami hissed, as it was scarcely the only sound he could make in such a low form. Ryou's head snapped up to alertness, and waited for Bakura to continue the purpose of the unexpected conjuration of his form.  
  
Ryou could see through him to the tame phone and dully reflecting countertops that rested somewhere below his chin. His clothing did not match Ryou's own, which was a rare occurrence for his other half, his dark side, and were probably picked up somewhere through his dreaming, and recollection of his own memories. He had been doing that a lot lately, and Ryou wondered what the spirit found so fascinating from the recovered pieces of his past life.  
  
He was worried for his Yami, as a simply dead, sort of mellow spirit seemed to replace the extremely homicidal maniac he knew so well, and cared for despite his obvious hate for all of the pain he experienced. He was becoming more skittish, more reserved somehow, and it was a wonder Ryou wasn't more concerned for his 'other half'.  
  
Shuddering in the impression that Bakura was clearing his throat, yet no sound came, he looked at the Hikari boy across the table from his ghostly form with a meaningful expression. Ryou barely heard the words;  
  
" . . . I found . . . found . . . "  
  
"What did you find?" he questioned softly, warming his chilled fingertips with his cup of tea, whose blessed steam curled upward naturally and caressed his pale face.  
  
For a moment, Bakura did nothing. Then, his form slowly solidified even further, to a recognizable shape, and defined enough that he could speak. The recently recovered spirit sat cross-legged in the air, his voluminous robes hanging in shadowed folds over his legs and lean chest, while his spider-like hands folded neatly in his lap. His version of the hair they both shared (except it was perhaps a bit more wild, and untamed than Ryou's was) contrasted in a melancholy mix against his dark, dark robes and cloak.  
  
"I found the memory of my education."  
  
Even in a more solid form than before, his voice shuddered like a static channel on the television, but his form was remarkably still in comparison to the lazy lounge he usually adopted. Something was strange.  
  
"I don't understand." Ryou's voice was even quieter than his darker counterpart's, but he sipped a bit of his cooled tea daintily to soothe the throat roughened with rarely used misuse. He felt calmer and more secure than normal in the presence of him, and his shoulders slackened naturally just from noticing that he was there with him.  
  
"You don't need to," Bakura told him coldly, mirroring Ryou's sip with a transparent cup of his own. "not yet, anyway. There was a school that I attended."  
  
"Doesn't seem like the perfect place to learn pain-induced magic, this school." Ryou commented, not betraying much emotion with the lightness in his high voice. Though that comment was of a type that might have offended many, the strengthening bond between Yami and Hikari allowed him to easily understand that he was simply being blunt in his Yami's eyes, not insensitive, because they were both naturally understanding in honesty, not necessarily kindness.  
  
Bakura barely blinked, when he fixed Ryou with a stare wading in liquid seriousness.  
  
"That doesn't matter; further studies of magic were because of my stupid choices. But I can tell you that someone's after you."  
  
"What?" the pale boy was becoming quite disconcerted at his Yami's cautious warning.  
  
Pushing the chair aside to raise himself to his Yami's level, Ryou looked quizzical and startled; he had always assumed that if he didn't get close to anyone, they wouldn't probe back. But someone was coming after ~him~, despite his distant precautions?  
  
If he was given more time, he might have thought of the whole stalking thing as a bitter joke.  
  
But it was only an instant before the melodious doorbell alerted him to a visitor.  
  
Bakura looked in the direction of the door. "They're here."  
  
Ryou made a movement for the back door.  
  
His Yami's misty form intercepted him.  
  
"You can't escape."  
  
Ryou's body went rigid, finally tasting enough of the thin answers he was getting from the only source who seemed to know what was going on.  
  
"Then tell me what I should do?!" he nearly choked on the salty tears sliding down his throat and building up behind his eyelids. Desperation for memory and his deepest and darkest fears of being /traced/ without reason sent him to instinctive belief of anything and everything.  
  
From time to come, he would recall disbelief of his Yami's warning wouldn't have led him anywhere different from the dark path he would eventually be led down.  
  
The yell must have alerted the people outside of Ryou's sure presence within the house, because the doorknob slowly turned with agonizing tension. The round, shiny handle turning, flashing in the afternoon reflections, reflecting in both of his eyes, whose pupils were barely visible as tiny pinpricks, framed with stormy brown irises. Ryou began to shake.  
  
"Stop it!" Bakura would have slapped the boy if he could, but now was not the time to be paralyzed in fear "Just remember, ~none of this was your fault~. You're innocent, no matter what they say!"  
  
The door was opening, and though the spirit lengthened his neck in a dignified reassurance at the shadows disturbing the forever-bleeding sun, his Hikari staggered back at the light, shielding his delicate eyes from the light.  
  
Bakura knew he should start the defenses. Grimly, the image of his soul began to dissolve from all normal sight, and Ryou angrily gestured through the ghostly apparition. He was alone.  
  
"Don't leave me!" he yelled, still shielding his eyes. Several groups of heavy steps abandoned courtesy, allowing themselves into Ryou's home without shame, but with a great deal of bitter scowls, and almost . . . ~fear~?  
  
Their costumes of darkened robes would have been beautiful before, but Ryou backed away with terror, because they looked so familiar, messengers of destruction and pain, things that assaulted him from so long ago . . .  
  
They took his mother, once.  
  
But even with an air of desperation, five full-grown men could easily do anything they pleased to a skinny sophomore. Still, he backed against the lone shelf that stood for years in his hallway, as a vase dropped, teetered off at the disturbance, falling into a magnificent storm of shattered, glimmering glass at Ryou's bare feet. The blood didn't scare him as much as it usually would, but there was no more room for any other fear than that of the dark men.  
  
The dark men, with the cuffs they snapped on him without any further question. They held sticks in a threatening manner around his twin temples, and heart, which was not nearly as protected from his sweater as the appearance of his ribcage.  
  
"We have you now, Ryou Bakura." One of the men stated, coldly pushing him out to the concrete porch.  
  
"What are you talking about?" Ryou was honestly in wonder at the foul sort of treatment he was getting from complete strangers. "Who are you?" he tried again, feeling his voice crack.  
  
"We're from the Ministry, vermin." One of them hissed, as if his words were poison. They hurt him about as much.  
  
This was all a dream . . . it had to be a dream. Just a twisted, conjured nightmare. And he would wake up.  
  
But Ryou Bakura, no matter how unbelievable the situation was to him, never woke up.  
  
"Ministry?" they must be insane, the whole lot of them "The police will catch up to you, this is illegal, don't you know?!"  
  
"'Police'," a third snorted contemptuously "/don't play dumb, traitor./ Your allies have betrayed you."  
  
"Allies, what are you talking about? You're all crazy!" or was ~he~ the one who was crazy?  
  
"Enough." The first man said coldly "He will get what he deserves."  
  
"Deserves?!" the second one quoted "My four-year-old daughter was killed by Death Eaters, two weeks ago! Was that what ~she~ deserved?! Was that a form of compensation on ~anyone's~ part?!"  
  
"Voldemort, and all of his supporters ~deserve~ a far more wretched fate than we can give him!" this voice sounded like a woman's. Ryou couldn't tell, he was practically licking the sun-warmed concrete with a bit tongue, and his head was spinning unnaturally and precariously between the increased pressure on his temples.  
  
"Now, is not the time. Bakura, your freedom belongs to us now."  
  
Such fateful words as a simple introduction to a horrible future.  
  
"Since you escaped to Japan, your trial was held without your presence, where you were found unanimously guilty, from your careless evidence--"  
  
Just what were they accusing him of? ~What was going on~?!  
  
"--you have participated in more than enough unforgivable actions to give assure your fate. As you are surely aware of--"  
  
"You sick bastard."  
  
"Why Ria, why did your bloody cult take Ria?!"  
  
"--Therefore, without further delay, you will be sentenced to the Prison of Azkaban until further notice. The guards are waiting for you. May god have mercy on your soul."  
  
"No . . . never mercy on a twisted thing like this." Someone was crying.  
  
/I'm so alone,/ he managed to think /and no one is understanding of anything I have to say . . . /  
  
//Never, aibou. I am here. Always.//  
  
"YOU HEARTLESS MONSTER!" pain lashed through his side; he supposed someone had kicked him while he was down.  
  
Funny, no matter how often he yearned it in the back of his mind, his Yami had never before referred to him as his partner. He grinned slightly, his swollen lip feeling almost numb against the rough concrete. Luckily the assaulters wouldn't notice.  
  
//I will share your pain.//  
  
"/Stupefy!/"  
  
Everything went dark, and in a sense, it was years before anything brightened up again.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Just a prologue, mind you. I can't say much, since I don't ~know~ much yet, but I will hint:  
  
- Ryou's mum wasn't the nicest of people - Ryou will never turn into a mad homicidal maniac - Bakura's really kinda warm and fuzzy on the inside - Azkaban is a bad, bad place to be with Bakura's and Ryou's combined memories  
  
Please review, or I won't continue. Harry and assorted buddies will play main rolls in this as well.  
  
Hope this PROLOGUE (yes, it's just an intro) didn't disappoint you.  
  
My writing can always be improved, so I would appreciate any comments regarding ~that~ specific aspect, as well.  
  
Thanks, you guys. You rock my world.  
  
giggleplex (an unsuited name for a lady of angst, but who's reading this anyway?) 


	2. Memories of a Sane Time

~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
"There was a boy . . .  
  
A very strange, ~enchanted~ boy.  
  
They say he wandered very far,  
  
--very far--  
  
over land and sea . . .  
  
A little shy, and sad of eye  
  
but very wise, was he.  
  
And then one day,  
  
one magic day, he passed my way.  
  
While we spoke of many things,  
  
fools and kings,  
  
this he said to me:  
  
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn  
  
is just to love . . . and be loved in return'"  
  
- Massive Attack & David Bowie, "Nature Boy"  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
. . . But this story begins in darkness, as many tales do.  
  
Not precisely the sort of physical darkness that has become most familiar to us; the sort that clouds your vision with shadows and veils mystery. Mystery which is often dangerous, but not nearly as dangerous as other sorts.  
  
No, this was a deep darkness of the heart, of a kind that swallowed up all of Ryou's already sparse hopes of escape.  
  
He had no idea where he was, how long he had been there, and a lot of other things that gave him a disconcerted outlook on his memory; he just didn't know enough for everything to fit soundly. As far as he knew, he was innocent.  
  
But if he were innocent, why would they place him here? This . . . prison of all prisons.  
  
/Azkaban./ He knew, or the other captives did.  
  
There were others, in other cells that probably resembled his, whose minds strayed dangerously close enough to the familiar Shadow Realm that they were mostly still intact, but easy to access. Though Ryou often disregarded the Eye's urgings to violate other minds, he could hardly ignore anything with such open consciousness' anymore.  
  
He didn't really have much control over what he thought, because just from the overloaded profound emotion he could nearly ~taste~, he couldn't block the leaks that sprung up from around him and seeped into his thoughts. Half of what he knew anymore was disjointed from everything else. Disorderly memories that ~hurt~.  
  
He wondered sometimes if he was insane.  
  
But he wasn't insane; Bakura had seen to that. He didn't appear as much as he used to, and on the rare occasion he did shimmer to sight he always said the same words:  
  
//"You are innocent, Ryou."//  
  
Was his name really Ryou? Was he really the little boy, the quiet boy, the hesitant boy whose life revolved around the neglect he never felt was important at the time?  
  
/Mama never came back . . . /  
  
Constantly, it seemed he recalled the most dreadful things; memories better left untouched that assaulted his thoughts. It was like being possessed in a play of his life, and not being able to change anything, just watching with horror ~everything~ he wanted to forget.  
  
--When he sat, he thought of sitting alone in the kitchen, as the sunlight tried to reach to him and taunt him from his unfortunate solitude. He thought of getting kicked in the ribcage and left in a dry alley where all he could do was finger his dagger, and he didn't dare start anything more--  
  
--When he lay, he remembered nearly drowning, 'her' fingers curled around his throat and pressing him into the bottom of the bathtub. Shivering in the desert night as he smelled urine, horses, and spicy sand--  
  
--When he ran in place, at least it was something predictable; running away from something horrible. Fortunately, Ryou could not recall ever being ~caught~--  
  
But when he stood still, he recalled the worst things. Mostly of ~her~, but . . .  
  
--Everything burning. Running. People burning. Little sister unrecognizable and mangled as the flames moved on, but recognizably ~dead~--  
  
--'She' walked away, as 'her' smile twisted into a dreadful grin. 'Her' eyes glowing dangerously, but 'she' didn't fight when they took 'her'--  
  
/Mama, I loved you so much Mama./  
  
He was too weak to cry anymore; for anyone.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Ryou awoke to reality with a spinning head that made his stomach churn, but he pushed the sickened feeling out of his immediate realization to check that he was actually experiencing reality, and not some sick alternate one of horrid recollection and nightmares.  
  
As soon as his surroundings registered, he felt his shoulders relax from the almost-permanent tension that hung about his body. Wiping off cold sweat from his nervously twitching brow, he finally slumped into the hard surface (maybe concrete) breathing steady, but never easily. He shivered.  
  
His head lolled back so he could see the grubby ceiling of his grubby cell, hanging with cobwebs that swayed dispassionately in the faintly felt sea breeze. Everything around him was gray, his clothes, his shadowed skin, his tiny cell, even the small glimpses of the stormy sea out of the barred window. However, there was a red feather stuck on the ceiling that had been there for as long as he could remember, that reminded him there was color in the world, and he wasn't entirely blind to it.  
  
Ryou was exhausted for running in place so long, and he had long since fallen to the corner with his thin legs propped up and out, as he slouched to rest his elbows on his knees. The feather-like hair tickled his long, dark eyelashes, so he brushed them away from his face in a habitual motion, feeling the cold sweat on his temples make it stick to them like static.  
  
It was becoming an unusually lengthened respite from dark Dreaming, and Ryou felt the dread building faithfully for another deep plunge into near- madness. It almost seemed to be taunting him somehow. Here, where he could just float away in insanity--  
  
//You're innocent . . . innocent . . . // So faint, those familiar words were, he couldn't understand if they were just imagined.  
  
Still wondering why he felt so blank inside rather than weighted down, he lowered his eyes, half-lidded in exhaustion, to the one open--barred-- window in his cell.  
  
He scrambled up suddenly, wobbling a bit. There was ~sunlight~ coming through, even if it was filtered ominously through the steel bars. The salty air had dried out his lips, but far from realizing it was a bad habit, he licked them before carefully leaning on the wall, staring openly at such a rare sight.  
  
*dementorsdon'tlikesunlikesun* He picked up unexpectedly before clamping down his barriers with a pained grimace, then turned back to the unremarkable setting as far as seaside views were concerned. *don'tliKESUNLIkesun*  
  
Ryou shook his head and gripped his grimy hair as if to shake the unknown mind from his presence. Once he was certain even the tiniest mind-mutter quieted into silence, he began to wonder. Another hiss of a distant wave proceeded a biting breeze that contradicted the sunny setting.  
  
/Dementor,/ he managed to think clearly without a violating interruption /what the hell's a Dementor?!/  
  
Even without the normal cloud-cover to hinder the sun's mighty gaze to the water, it seemed dull, without noticeable sparkle and the sky was still more gray than blue. His eyes didn't reflect the rare image; they were dull and weary, devoid of shine.  
  
Ryou sneezed, rubbing his reddish, very British nose.  
  
It was strange, though. He had been in that cell for so long, long enough for the hope to dissipate to gloom, but this prison was quite unlike any jail he had ever heard of; he had not seen one warden or guard wander the corridors through his door's minute window. Ever.  
  
But no one escaped.  
  
He knew most of those thoughts were absolutely ridiculous, because something pushed in his food tray every day, didn't they? Ryou was always blind to the world in despair, so he never saw the tray ~actually~ be pushed in through the door, but he did eat, he was still alive, right?  
  
Sort of alive. In technical, practical terms he was. But Ryou knew very well that he wouldn't ever be able to revert to his life of choice, false ignorance, even if he were ever given the chance. Which seemed highly unlikely, in all actuality of _his_ reality.  
  
/Dementors . . . / his invisible or non-existing captors puzzled him to an easy contemplation that took up whatever boredom he could manage, for most of the time, but this new title, this new ~thing~ of whose name was hesitantly glorified in fear, ringing in the back of his mind, seemed more interesting at that moment.  
  
For an odd reason, he repeatedly conjured the mental image of a humanoid rat in a straight-jacket. Wait, was he the rat in the straight-jacket . . . ?  
  
The boy that had lost his name, laughed deeply and long, but without humor. Deranged, demented thing; Dementor?  
  
//You are Ryou. An innocent.//  
  
/Innocent./ he hummed without following a tune, the un-melody echoing around his tiny cell without structure, and sounding disconcerting in it's hollow quality. Slowly, he began to sway as his song became a little louder.  
  
Then the clouds returned to their brightened, exposed master, and the flickering torchlight became the main light-source yet again for the chilled cell. As the darkness dropped into familiarity, Ryou began to stiffen an still again as he braced himself for something unexpected. Despite the warning signals of reason running rampant through his mind, he crept up to the locked door with the absolute silent grace of a cat, and he felt his eyes burn as the light became brighter and brighter.  
  
When his eyes peered over the edge of the window warily, he saw nothing, but the dread still remained.  
  
A still moment passed; a peaceful sort of moment. Then, quite suddenly:  
  
--an inhuman shriek crowed through the corridors--a door slammed, forcefully--~something~ moved out of the corner of his eye, that had the supple grace of a worn cloak--  
  
Ryou felt an involuntary shudder spread through his body, and for a split second he felt an agony through his bones that reminded him of a dream he had where all of his bones cracked inside muscle, but the sensation ended quickly, leaving him gaping for breath.  
  
And then blackness, again. He was standing this time.  
  
/~*~*~*~/  
  
"MAMA!"  
  
He remembered her distinctly as one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, with dark hair as straight as her expression, and lovely almond eyes that slanted slightly in improved, warm amber glory. The way her face was angular and her nose pointed out just ~so~ was firmly imprinted in his mind, and the thin smile she often wore that was constantly shrouded in mystery.  
  
She was in the hands of some oddly dressed folk, now, her eyes narrowed, her lips contorted into a frightening smile. It was the same smile he had known forever, and yet it was only at that moment that he realized how menacing and frightening it really was. His mother was stiffly being led away from the playground near their house in England, and though their destination was pointedly ~away~ from little Ryou, she didn't struggle.  
  
"I love you Mama! Don't go, don't leave me!"  
  
He ran up to the group as quickly as his little legs could carry him, which wasn't very fast at all. Still, he caught up with the procession enough that a few of the men with the cold eyes took notice of him without emotion.  
  
But 'she' was facing the other direction, suddenly laughing.  
  
"Stupid boy." She cackled with considerable and specific mirth.  
  
"Ma . . . ma . . . ?"  
  
He took a step backward. His Mama had never acted like this before, and he was scared. More scared than he had ever been.  
  
"You place your trust too easily, and that will be your pathetic downfall, boy." He heard her pause with amused seriousness that poisoned her sweet voice "Don't ever come for me; you're disgusting."  
  
"Mama!"  
  
"One day . . . one day I'll kill you though, little Ryou."  
  
"No, MAMA!" /Why do you hate me, mother?! What happened?!/  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
//Up Ryou.//  
  
His eyes flickered open again, with his sight very disoriented from the distinct lack of light that engulfed him entirely. Despite the fact that it was quite obviously night again, he could tell that his eyesight was blurry with fear, and muscles taught with tension.  
  
//Up.//  
  
He heaved himself up as his thin stomach drug a little on the stone floor. As his eyes adjusted to the lack of lighting, he saw a bit of a flicker coming through the door, and over the colorless meal of gruel he was allowed twice a day in the wooden bowl that stayed in his cell constantly.  
  
Ryou's appetite was lost. He rubbed his slightly tearing eyes with the back of his saltwater-chapped hand, and just sat for a moment to reacquaint himself to lonely reality.  
  
When he opened them again, his sight flooded back like sand, and it took another few seconds before he could see clearly again, what he didn't want to see. The flicker of torchlight reminded him of the last time his consciousness was regained; so convinced that he saw a flicker through the corridor, even as fleeting as it was. Then, feeling something quite unpleasant spread, as if he were cracking as easily as an eggshell.  
  
But it was silent and deserted again. He faintly heard someone sobbing, and though he could not see the man, it fed his strength slightly to know that ~someone~ was there, though he couldn't see him. It was maddening to remember that he was in a sort of "solitary"; unable to see anything living besides the unfortunate, sickly insects that entered through the window.  
  
Confined in solitude, confined in his own mind and the unknowing minds of others. Ryou made a hopeless sound, reminiscent of a dry sob to his knees as he drew them together, the thin robe draped hopelessly over his legs.  
  
/I'll never get out, never ever./ The Ring pressed uncomfortably into his lean chest, jingling in distress.  
  
//You are innocent Ryou.//  
  
Bakura's voice even seemed as faded as his vision; as it was becoming harder and harder for him to communicate with his lighter half. Suddenly, his despair flared to anger.  
  
"What's the point of being ~innocent~ when I'll NEVER GET OUT!"  
  
Silence answered him.  
  
Ryou slammed his fist onto the stone floor.  
  
//Then ~leave~. Now.// A small push.  
  
It would have been almost hilariously ridiculous a suggestion, but his body began to react in a way it was unfamiliar with. He trembled, and clutched the robe in his now claw-like fingers, breathing shakily and eyes widened frightfully.  
  
Spasm after spasm became involuntary, he writhed on the ground, barely controlling howls of desperation, and then--  
  
--Pain. The burning sort of, red-hot pain that twisted him in agony, turning his breath hot against his hand, and conjuring the acrid taste of bile in the back of his throat.  
  
He was changing, but he didn't understand what was happening to him, only the pain ruled him as his eyes widened to instinctive madness.  
  
Bakura was quiet, and didn't seem distressed, but he could have been just unable to speak as well. But he couldn't depend on his Yami all of the time.  
  
When was the last time he had thought of him as his 'Yami'?  
  
Twisting again so tightly, it seemed as though he was shrinking, sweat came forth to cool him, but inside of him, the burning continued. Then, came the very same 'cracking' sensation from before--  
  
Ryou screamed. Still it continued.  
  
// . . . Fly, Aibou. Fly.//  
  
He spread his white wings and flew out of the bars, his lanky form appearing esoteric on the dreary night landscape.  
  
//Fly.//  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Oh, I just seem absolutely ~abusive~ to poor wittle Wyou, don't I?  
  
Oli: Not as abusive as you are to me.  
  
*ignores Oli*  
  
OH MY GOODNESS! People actually ~like~ it?! Wow, you fellow wierdos are the ~best~ . . . thank you guys, SO much for the encouragement ^^  
  
I understand that this is only slightly less confusing than the prologue, but I am planning for the next chapter to be a sort of "explaining" one, regarding Bakura's unexpected wisdom, Ryou's unexpected escape, and Ryou's mother's unexpected values.  
  
Hey, at least I'm somewhat spontaneous! ^^  
  
Now as for pairings . . . everyone except for one of my reviewers had the same preference. And the one who was apposed from the rest, happened to be very convinced.  
  
I will not name any particular names, but please, you know who you are, so I'm begging you to READ THIS before doing anything drastic.  
  
The only reason there is a specific domination of guy/girl pairings around the world, is instinct. "Lust" I suppose you could call it, but it has been often claimed that "lust" and "love" are completely different things. That is why I believe that love HAS no boundaries, let alone the simple setbacks of gender.  
  
Hormones in our bodies make us react the way we do, but many girls have guy hormones, and many guys have girl hormones; it's natural. Some girls are flat chested, some guys can't grow beards. So it is ~perfectly natural~ for gay pairings to happen in real life, and you shouldn't deprive them of happiness because of a simple prejudice going on throughout much of society these days.  
  
You will meet many gay people in your life, just expect it.  
  
Now, you don't have to ~particularly~ enjoy reading about them, but do realize that the same prejudice should occur in stories, giving yaoi/shonen- ai pairings a very interesting twist. Or at least they should.  
  
If I choose to write one in this story, it'll be shonen-ai anyway, and nothing too drastic. Probably nothing more than a little snuggling, speeches, and a little kiss here and there, but if you want to appose me in my slight sway toward a shonen-ai pairing, just review with a valid point against me. I haven't decided yet, as you can see, because no romance will appear at least for another few chapters.  
  
I will certainly take anything you say into account; I don't want people scarred and my story "ruined", after all.  
  
(End speech)  
  
I'm building up a soundtrack for this thing already, so if you're interested in hearing something from it, simply leave a request in your review and I'll (hopefully) e-mail a song to you, or directly e-mail me. Really, really cool songs I have here ^^  
  
The lyrics at the beginning of this chapter are from "Nature Boy", which is actually a Nat King Cole song, though Massive Attack did a remix for it a while ago for the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. In the movie, it's the dark theme playing at the beginning, and I think maybe the end. It sounded appropriate as a theme for this story, somehow.  
  
Anywho, I'm wondering if this is cliché . . . it seems like it ~should~ be, with the words I have been using throughout this past chapter (reading too many fantasy novels), so PLEASE tell me if you would prefer me writing a little more straightforward. I think I did a wretched job at my dramatics, but I'll let you be the judge of my worthiness ^^  
  
Please review! Anything is accepted, even flames. Just be warned, though, I will reply back to nasty words without a point.  
  
Thank you so much for even checking out this fic, I know people are busy. I just hope everyone enjoyed it so far!  
  
Happy go lucky day to you all  
  
giggle 


	3. Encountered Mystery

I forgot to warn you people; in case you haven't guessed it yet, this fanfiction WILL include spoilers for "Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix".  
  
Sorry for my lapse. Nrr.  
  
Song of the Chapter: "What Your Soul Sings" by Massive Attack. Another "100th Window" song (tell me if you'd like me to e-mail it to you!)  
  
(Sorry this isn't a very long chapter either, DcSolstice T.T I tried I tried!)  
  
Cheers, peers.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
"There was a boy . . .  
  
A very strange, ~enchanted~ boy.  
  
They say he wandered very far,  
  
--very far--  
  
over land and sea . . .  
  
A little shy, and sad of eye  
  
but very wise, was he.  
  
And then one day,  
  
one magic day, he passed my way.  
  
While we spoke of many things,  
  
fools and kings,  
  
this he said to me:  
  
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn  
  
is just to love . . . and be loved in return'"  
  
- Massive Attack & David Bowie, "Nature Boy"  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
"Tomorrow, we will ride to Azkaban."  
  
"Of course, the island is just on the horizon, after all."  
  
"The dementors have been notified?"  
  
"Yes, milady."  
  
" . . . the Dark Lord has been notified?"  
  
"Of course, milady."  
  
"Good. Every thing is in order."  
  
"As always."  
  
"Can you remember what or precise mission is, as far as total decimation or a quiet break out?"  
  
"I doubt any break out from Azkaban could be considered 'quiet', love. But I suspect the Dark Lord would be unhappy to find any devious plans to tell the world he has returned, foiled in his 'absence'."  
  
"Ha--he just won't do his own dirty work for him."  
  
"I knew there was a reason I loved you."  
  
"I haven't seen it yet."  
  
"Well, I have."  
  
" . . . "  
  
"Do you ever think about him?"  
  
"Who."  
  
"Your son."  
  
"Pft, he's not ~your~ son."  
  
"I know."  
  
" . . . no. Why?"  
  
"You just seem preoccupied. Do you wish you could free him as well as our suffering comrades?"  
  
"Only to kill him."  
  
"Haha--~sure~, love. Get some rest, darling, we're on a mission from a god."  
  
He knew that killing was a tender mercy to someone in Azkaban.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
He flew; it was all he knew.  
  
The moment he pushed off clumsily from that barred ledge, he felt all of his sorrows simply--drift away as the wind whistled past. The stars were still scattered about the sky, even though the pinkish hues of dawn had already illuminated the sky slightly, and he headed for the only horizon with ~something~ promised, and not just more water. He had seen too much water.  
  
It was the most wonderful feeling he had never dreamed it could be. He remembered more than just such complicated sadness and depression, and it warmed him up so far beyond physically.  
  
The warmth bubbled up deep inside him, and he ~laughed~ and soared dreamily.  
  
He ~*cawed*~ a tancho's call, but he didn't want to notice that at that point.  
  
Ryou was happy, for no reason at all besides peacefulness, and nothing came to take him back.  
  
//Fly Ryou, fly.//  
  
He cawed again; floating, fleeing.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Their camp was quiet that night, as no one seemed inclined to talk about much in fear that they would then ~reveal~ too much, and that was a dangerous thing to do within Lord Voldemort's circle. There were about only twelve of them in all, because they were anticipating no struggle from the dementors stationed around their target, but needed enough cover to keep the convicts out of the hands of the ministry again.  
  
Avery sighed, sharpening a wicked dagger for no other purpose than to have something to do with his hands. The camp's central fire pit burned with no sign of natural weakness at the slight breeze, but the purple flame was by no means natural. It burned strongly until dawn, where the constantly insomnia-struck Death Eater banished it with a lazy swish of his wand.  
  
Others were asleep but he had charmed himself long ago, back in his fifth year, to not need sleep any longer. His cleverness was renown among Hogwart's alumni, and it was perhaps that which made him a candidate for a Death Eater in the first place. None of his old classmates would directly associate him with the quiet boy who spent too many unhealthy hours in the company of books, now, but it was nice to reminisce--to only himself, of course.  
  
Still, he did miss sleeping at times.  
  
He sat on a conveniently placed tree-stump in the shadow of a gigantic oak, whose wise branches hid him slightly from the view of their camp. His right leg was bent up to his haunches as his left stretched out to the leave- littered forest floor; drawing simple shapes on the ground under it's own accord.  
  
Avery's dusty blonde hair tickled his cheeks, reminding him in an irritated fashion that it was growing a bit long and constantly unkempt. It was sometimes useful to have hair in which you could hide your eyes under, because eyes were so difficult to control, but the split-ends were scratchy, course, and diffidently not worth it.  
  
With a decided sneer, he reminded himself that he would look like that troublesome Potter boy before too long.  
  
The blade slipped, digging itself deeply into the tree-stump.  
  
Yes, that wretched little boy who had yet to discover how insignificant a barrier he really was. How could those Pheonix-fools believe that something as slight as a half-trained child could ever stand up to the Dark Lord of legends?  
  
If his master had not insisted on toying with him--it would make their horrific conquest ~so~ much easier.  
  
Avery yanked the blade cleanly from the decaying wood. /Though I have long since learned that nothing is done the easy way under the Dark Lord's supervision./  
  
It was in Potter's sixth year that he had injured the Dark Lord enough for his soul to stray slightly for a while. The event was a passing of great relief among wizards, but they still did not suspect the truth.  
  
The Dark Lord would never die.  
  
Avery grinned to himself, still sharpening the blade.  
  
And in the time that he 'strayed', he had brought back ideas, he had brought back wonderful plans. With the experience of a dark place, and the powers of shadows. None of them understood it, but the faith recalled by the Dark Lord's stressing of power was enough for each and every one of his 'immortal' disciples to trust in it.  
  
But none of them could trust him; that was why they did his bidding with absolutely no questions asked.  
  
His steely gray eyes closed for a moment, as he smelled the pine and sea water, tasted nature. It was an unhealthy forest, he decided though he didn't really care, with too many sorrows mulling around such doomed life. He could smell the depression of the trees, it's faintly metallic scent prodding slight pity.  
  
But then, he sensed something ~more~.  
  
Avery's eyes shot open as his body rose in a taught crouch; holding his silver dagger in front of him warily to the trees. He took advantage of his quiet step to sneak closer to the something, keeping his mind and expression blank in case of a sneak attack.  
  
He waited.  
  
"What?!"  
  
Yes, there was diffidently someone out there, foolish enough to actually ~speak~ in such a tense environment as this. Of course, the unwilling victim probably didn't share such 'gifts' as Avery--  
  
--How could someone not notice this?  
  
Abruptly, while he was contemplating the situation, something shot out with a rustle from the bushes.  
  
He ducked with a roll silently, as his attacker recovered agonizingly quickly and lunged at him again, snarling, as the rotting leaves rustled in annoyance.  
  
Avery was thrown back with a hiss of surprise, only somehow managing to swing his sharpened dagger upward, as his attacker dodged back--  
  
--Grabbing his face with a claw-like hand, sharp nails pressing into his cheek and drawing blood down his pale face. The face above him was masked by the view of the rising sun, but he understood it's mutual discomfort from their situation.  
  
Avery grinned.  
  
His dagger sparkled on the attacker's throat, preventing either of them from moving for the time being.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Ryou's bare feet touched down on rough sand, and he stood there for a moment, savoring the feeling of the rocky beach between his toes. His eyelids were closed in ecstasy, and his untroubled but inquisitive mind behind them still wondered if this was all a dream.  
  
But he knew it wasn't, with a tiny giggle, dreams in ~that place~ were worse than reality. And this was so much better than both.  
  
He laughed with great power now, testing his rarely-used voice out again, a little deeper than what he recalled from before. Ryou forgot all sense of practicality and raced around the beach, teasing the waves to come closer, and finally just leaping and galloping and skipping over to the large mass of trees; gates by old eroded logs.  
  
The shade crowned him delicately as he still smiled, bending under brittle, low-hung branches that threatened to hurt him. He elevated to just standing on the balls of his bare feet, and he stalked with amazing agility and stealth to another clearing in the forest. Dimly, he wondered how he could walk so silent after staying in his tiny cell for so long.  
  
/You're welcome, Hikari-baka./ even his other half was amused.  
  
"Oh thank you." Salt water began flooding into his lower eyelids "~Thank you~." He whispered.  
  
Involuntarily, he slumped forward to his knees, rubbing his eyes and instinctively stifling most of his sobs. Ryou wasn't sure why, and had sparsely the idea of the actual purpose of crying.  
  
But for once, it felt so ~good~ to let his tears and fears run out of his eyes and stick to his face. The helplessness was maddening as he tried to control his racking sobs, parching his throat and tiring his body, stop, but he only wept harder, just reveling in somewhat distorted happiness.  
  
He barely noticed the slight warmth around his shoulders from his Yami, until he felt warm tears fall like generous, warmed raindrops on his head, which his only responded to by burrowing himself deeper into the apparition of Bakura. The spirit, though in possession of no independent body of his own, could still cry with untainted, raw magic.  
  
They both wept; for happiness, for luck, for peace.  
  
However, all great things end, and after a while, Ryou pulled himself straighter with a shudder in his breath and wiped his tears on the grubby sleeves of his prison uniform. He felt Bakura return to his soul room, but didn't look up to see it, caught up in the aftershock of his lapse of  
  
Happiness.  
  
/Bakura--/ Ryou hesitated /what will we do now?/  
  
//I don't really care. But I know where we're going after this.//  
  
The hikari boy stiffened a little with a scowl. His life was becoming controlled by others, just like before.  
  
He had no intention of going down easily this time.  
  
/No./  
  
//What do you mean ~no~?// Bakura responded, irritation appearant in his voice.  
  
Ryou tore his gaze spitefully to the side, his eyes narrowed, and thinking that perhaps his Yami's kindness wasn't really what he had thought it was.  
  
"I'm not about to fall back into another one of my stupid destinies!" he hissed to him with an isolated finality.  
  
Bakura was taken aback  
  
//I would ~never~ lead you to destiny, Ryou.//  
  
"How could I know that you're speaking the truth?!"  
  
The Yami's transparent image appeared again, looking down to his slouching Aibou with an unreadable expression. A feeling that was strong enough to show, and become readable to the often times oblivious Hikari; sadness, regret.  
  
Ryou took a step back in startled surprise.  
  
"Because we are 'destined' to fail, aibou. Our soul will always be 'destined' to fail." He whispered, and they both knew just how true the words were. They stared at one another for a second; two halves of a greater whole--but still separate. Two souls who didn't always understand each other.  
  
Bakura faded into the shadows once more, bowing his head in earnest.  
  
Ryou shivered with another shaky smile, an apologetic one this time, raising his head to the filtering branches that blocked the sky. A bird trilled into the morning, but otherwise, the relative silence seemed unnatural, oddly enveloping and still. Forests were not supposed to sound like this.  
  
//There is someone nearby,// the tomb robber's echoed voice warned //be still. We do not yet understand the significance of their presence.//  
  
"What?!" Ryou cried, before he could stop himself, whipping around in distress.  
  
/They've come for my again, oh gods . . . / he could feel himself shaking in hysteria and pure wretched anticipation. Ryou's head went limp. /Oh, oh, oh, I can't fight them, no no no./  
  
//Ryou! Listen to me!//  
  
His memories became too much to bear, despite his absence from the prison, his capture, his mother, he thought of them with slightly wild eyes.  
  
/Come, they've come they've come they've come./  
  
//Aibou, I'm taking over.// he notified himself, without further preamble.  
  
Then his fingers were not his own, his eyes were no longer his own, and he drifted eerily to his soul room in complete trust of his Yami.  
  
The only outward change was a little glow from the disguised ring, and suddenly, the expression was cold, completely masked. Bakura walked carefully, it was like a second nature to him still after all of those years in exile, his hands itching for his beloved dagger which no longer hung in deadly anticipation at his hip.  
  
He conjured the Eye with a twist of his spidery hand, a relief for hiding it after all of these years, considering if he should attempt to take advantage of it's power, erratic to him as it was. It didn't take long for him to come to his decision. Zork Necrophadisu was still a part of him, wasn't he?  
  
His fingers massaged the gold, feeling the warmth spread through him; the intoxicating experience of such beautiful power.  
  
*. . . unwilling victim . . . foolish . . . *  
  
//Ryou . . . ?//  
  
/I trust you./  
  
He smiled maliciously, then dove for the presence.  
  
Bakura did not expect the other to be skilled, but time had taken it's toll on his patience, and he still recovered quickly from his first failed attempt to immobilize the man on the other side of the bushes. His spontaneous manner of fighting left the opposing person dazed for a minute.  
  
He twisted and swiped up at the possessive spirit with an unexpected weapon, a clean dagger that was sharp enough to gleam.  
  
The Yami responded by reaching down and grabbing his clean-shaven face with sharp nails that cut through his skin like a dinner knife, drawing five individual points of trickling blood around his cheek.  
  
However, the opposing dagger was stationed expertly at his throat, he could feel it.  
  
The pause that followed was at least as long as the scuffle had taken. Neither of them flinched when a crow unexpectedly took flight somewhere above them, which told a lot about each other.  
  
"Not bad." Bakura said in that deep, rich voice he had. He seemed very sure of himself, and Avery was slightly concerned for himself with such mad reassurance coming from this boy.  
  
His face was hidden behind waist-length white hair, bleached with something other than any sort of physical dye, he was certain. He was unnaturally lean, yet still quite obviously strong with whip-cord-like wiry muscles despite his malnutrition and unkempt state before him. The boy was dressed in some sort of ragged, gray robes that hung off his thin frame like a hand- me-down, but they were no hassle to his maneuverability as they should have been.  
  
He was still smiling, a frightening leer masked with mystery, and Avery had no idea why. Such mystery was making him slightly uncomfortably, though he didn't dare show it outwardly.  
  
"You would have killed me easily if you held a weapon." Avery sneered.  
  
The boy's upper lip curled a little.  
  
"And I would have to admit that your means of fighting are by no means honorable." He said, still not moving.  
  
"Well, I'm not an honorable man." This kid had no idea who he was messing with. That thought allowed him to contort his expression to a mirror image of the boy's. "Just give up, kid."  
  
The Death Eater flinched as his grip tightened, piercing more flesh. He knew his sign of weakness was a mistake as the boy's sneer widened a little. This was beyond mischief, it was absolutely sadistic.  
  
"Would you like me to destroy your pretty face?"  
  
Who the hell was this kid?!  
  
"I can bear that. ~You~ on the other hand, good sir, cannot afford to have your throat slit if you plan on surviving beyond our little encounter." Avery reminded him, cheerfully.  
  
The sneer faded to an expression of deep mistrust.  
  
"Just lower your hand, and I won't hurt you."  
  
"Do you think I'm stupid enough to believe your word?"  
  
Avery chuckled "Bright, are you boy?"  
  
"I'm still not going to let you go." The voice turned as chilled as ice.  
  
Avery sighed. "Look, I'm not going to kill you once you lower your hand. Not that a muggle device could take someone's life in the first place."  
  
"Prejudiced, I see. Not a comment that should be given lightly to a fool who doesn't have his wand."  
  
/Wand?/ Ryou questioned.  
  
//Not now.//  
  
He mentally asked for support from the Eye, which it gave again, a bit hesitated. This Avery man was not an honorable idiot, but he could tell he was telling the truth about not killing him. For more amusement's sake than anything, but still truthful.  
  
The blonde man waited. Bakura took his nails from his cheeks, looking at the blood on his fingernails. Ryou would have felt queasy if he had a body as his other half licked off the blood daintily.  
  
Avery's hand lowered as well, watching the boy without much expression.  
  
"Your blood is bitter." Bakura noted.  
  
He bowed his head "Aye."  
  
The white-haired boy flashed another odd smile, this time signaling slight recognition in Avery's eyes. That smile was familiar, somehow.  
  
"I am sorry for attacking you." Ryou said cautiously.  
  
His strange accent, only slightly differing from Avery's own made him start in surprise.  
  
/I know that smile./ Avery suddenly realized  
  
Avasiah's smile. Cold, beautiful Avasiah's smile.  
  
And suddenly, he understood who this boy really was.  
  
/'He is deaf to magic.'/ His beloved said once to the Dark Lord in disgust.  
  
A very dangerous little boy, now hesitant and thoughtful in his mannerisms.  
  
/Deaf to magic./ he recalled, taking a step back. Not a squib, no, something beyond a wizard, but deaf to it all. That would explain the ~magic~ bleached hair, but he was much more dangerous than he seemed to expect.  
  
"Get lost kid." Was all he said.  
  
They boy didn't move at once, instead reflecting a blank sort of look in his unnaturally pale face.  
  
/Where do I go now?/ Ryou asked.  
  
//Your choice.// Bakura grumbled.  
  
He thought for a moment.  
  
"Ah--Mr. Avery?" he asked, not daring to look at him "Which direction is London?"  
  
The blonde man watched him quizzically for a second.  
  
He pointed. The boy looked thoughtfully in that direction, before turning the other way.  
  
"I'd rather not cross the rest of the world before I reach my destination." He said over his shoulder with a sly smile before turning to walk.  
  
Avery grinned. /Clever. Pity he can't help us; as useless as a mudblood./  
  
"Hey kid." He called out, halting the boy's stride. Just as he turned, Avery allowed no mercy before throwing his dagger.  
  
Bakura caught it's gold hilt, eyes narrowed.  
  
"You will gain nothing with such pitiful attacks."  
  
"It's yours." Avery said, startling both spirits. "Here--" he tossed the leather belt to keep it in, and his black, nondescript cloak.  
  
He caught both of the additional items with a frown, before relaxing with a thanking smile that lit up his face brilliantly.  
  
/If only Avasiah would smile like that./  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Avery."  
  
"Good luck."  
  
The boy left the clearing without another word.  
  
/Now,/ the blonde man thought distractedly, scratching his head /how did he know my name is Avery?/  
  
Strange. He shrugged it off, returning to the Death Eater's camp.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
A few responses:  
  
***Rosz of the Angel - Ma-a-a-a-a-a-aybe. *shrugs* I haven't really thought about the HP pairings, yet.  
  
XGP - I'm glad you have still read my fanfiction, despite the fact that you're not the biggest fan of angst ^^ As for the love thing; I am one of those people who finds a little thoughtful romance absolutely adorable, and sometimes the best feeling in the world. As far as I know right now, I will try my best to tone down any shonen-ai hints to a bearable level to you; but I just sincerely hope you won't abandon my story because there is a guy/guy pairing involved. Besides, you don't seem like that kind of person! ^^***  
  
Woo--that was a close and completely oblivious encounter on both sides (in the story).  
  
The "deaf to magic" idea will be explained soon enough.  
  
I got the idea from Kate Elliot's "Crown of Stars" series (good good GOOD books), so if you've read them, think Liath. The hair bleaching, on the other hand, belongs to milady Mercedes Lackey. Some of you other fantasy novel loving wierdos should understand that from various parts of her "Heralds of Valdemar" series.  
  
YAY! I'm glad more people reviewed!!! ^^ It just makes me ~so happy~ when people pay attention! Thankyouthankyouthankyou! *bounces*  
  
As for the pairings--  
  
This debate is still quite heated on both the shonen-ai side, and the NO shonen-ai side, and still has me considering. At the moment, I think I'm going to involve a compromise: slight shonen-ai, but nothing really story- shaping. Just enough to ignore, if you'd like.  
  
But I have a really warm-and-fuzzy idea regarding a scene *giggles* it makes me happy just thinking about it!  
  
I'm not going to tell you the pairings *eyes flash mysteriously* But keep in mind, that this story's main genres do NOT INCLUDE ROMANCE. It's all a compensation for my sadly lacking love life *sigh*  
  
Also, I was thinking about starting a mailing list for this fic. If you DON'T want to be on it, tell me in your review.  
  
Oh, and here is the money question: What is a Tancho? *smiles* Pockey to anyone who can tell me what it is (I wrote a research paper on the Tancho last year ~_^)  
  
Please write all of your questions or concerns in a REVIEW! Flame me if you'd like!  
  
Thank you for your time so far ^^  
  
giggleplex  
  
PS - . . . Review? *looks sheepish* It's a very pretty button . . . 


	4. London

I have been on vacation for the past week, where I also picked up a sprained wrist and purple knuckles on my left hand. The splint makes it though to type fast.  
  
Splints suck! X-P  
  
Yeah. And the writer's block regarding "The Sanctuary" was kind of maddening as well; I stared at a screen for an hour, and all I could come up with was about three paragraphs depicting Rei having a wary scuffle with a sheet of paper. I am SO serious!  
  
If you call this chapter shounen-ai, you're a little too sensitive, alright? I'm sorry, but this isn't going to be a rxyb pairing (though it's one of my favorites ^_~), and this chapter was NOT meant to depict ~that~ sort of love. Still, I think it's very horrid if you abandon a story simply because of a pairing that you don't like, OR RATHER a pairing that you're not /used to/.  
  
So here it is. Read, rinse, review and repeat if necessary ^^  
  
Chapter theme - "What Your Soul Sings" by Massive Attack (the same as last chapter)  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
"There was a boy . . .  
  
A very strange, ~enchanted~ boy.  
  
They say he wandered very far,  
  
--very far--  
  
over land and sea . . .  
  
A little shy, and sad of eye  
  
but very wise, was he.  
  
And then one day,  
  
one magic day, he passed my way.  
  
While we spoke of many things,  
  
fools and kings,  
  
this he said to me:  
  
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn  
  
is just to love . . . and be loved in return'"  
  
- Massive Attack & David Bowie, "Nature Boy"  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
He flew for two days, living off of clear streams and various birds.  
  
It barely occurred to him that perhaps he was a cannibal for eating such meat, but it was by far the best food he had eaten in a very long time. The slight nausea-ridden feeling as he was flying in the form of a lanky tancho, a Japanese crane, was easily ignored once he reminded himself of the subtly pleasant fill, and not those agonizing pangs of hunger that used to wake him in the middle of the night.  
  
Ryou still felt as if he were drowning in a haze, still unbelieving of his luck and strange ability. However, there were some things that he was at peace for not understanding, he wasn't a particularly curious person and turning into a bird was familiar enough in the manner that told him that Bakura knew what he was doing.  
  
So he flew, feeling light in the body, light in the mind, and content with the world.  
  
Flying. But he didn't know how to fly . . .  
  
He shrugged it off.  
  
Even normally ignorable physical sensations were wonderful and absolutely cherished to him in those times. As the world around him contorted in lovely British landscapes, living subtly in denied beauty, he sped off in a steady rush of wings and gliding, admiring life. Admiring anything besides madness.  
  
But never beauty; because it was impossible to see sadness without beauty, in all things. Ryou tried to consciously ignore it all, but it had become harder for him to grasp himself mentally, shaking him back to self-induced, wonderful lies where the world was as free as his flight.  
  
Not one person had come after him. He didn't stop to think, he just let the wind take him to wherever the free-flowing breezes recommended--in the general direction of London, of course.  
  
He recognized a city, a very large city, coming into view on the second day, however the lights had blazed to life, illuminating the sky and masking the stars with smog. Ryou hesitated mid-flight at the intimidating sight, caught by the sad state, such a strange place.  
  
Ryou landed a few miles outside London, taking refuge under a gigantic oak tree, whose leaves were vacating their homes and swept up slowly by the wind. It was dark enough that he couldn't figure out the actual color of the leaves, therefore, he still had no idea what year it was, what time it was, or even an idea of what month it was.  
  
As he touched down into slightly soaking grass, he changed instinctively back into his human form, stumbling headfirst from the change of weight. The grass tasted vile, but it was a relief to again realize that it ~tasted~.  
  
Ryou pulled himself up, feeling and hearing his knees grind unpleasantly and his elbows pop. His vision was nearly completely useless after changing back into normal human ones, so he scrambled about, finally settling down by bracing himself against the thick trunk. It was a fortunate instance that the tree was so large, because he barely brushed the side of it besides.  
  
Breathing raggedly and already feeling his arms begin to stiffen up after unaccustomed strain, he allowed his weighted lids to close on their own accord. As his breath steadied, he found the utter silence of the still countryside slightly unnerving, and the rustles from his robes as he sat down seemed unnaturally loud.  
  
He shifted into what he thought was a sitting position, because he was losing the immediate feeling to his bony legs, his head rolling back and neck braced uncomfortably by wood.  
  
Ryou sighed to himself, almost hopelessly.  
  
/I don't understand people . . . / he thought, his head spinning slightly in exhaustion. That man they had met was--different. Even more so than those he had thought he had known when he lived in Japan, all twisting in their facades of courage and love, yet still succeeding.  
  
Luckily.  
  
/I don't even understand myself./ his eyes opened, eyebrows furrowing /What am I ~supposed~ to do? How am I ~supposed~ to act?/  
  
He had lived his life by the experiences of others; always. It was just so much easier to act like others. No one could judge you if nothing you said showed individual feeling--  
  
--Not like his mother did.  
  
Ryou frowned deeper, shaking it off to an unreadable expression, even to the darkness. /Bakura never had any problems with this sort of thing, but I've never met anyone who had to break out of prison./ he flushed despite the cool night breeze, in pure shame.  
  
//It is hard, aibou.// commented his Yami. He still seemed weary for some reason. //But you must find success . . . with yourself.//  
  
Ryou stiffened. /So hard./ he agreed.  
  
He hugged himself in despair, suddenly realizing that no one around him could see him, even if there ~were~ people around him. With the reassurance, his face slackened from it's half-smile into a weary frown of cold nature, facing the stars.  
  
/Life is so hard when you bring attention to yourself./ he buried his nose into his knees, comfortably balanced.  
  
The wind quickened for a slight second, but not to a natural biting quality; rather, a caress on the back of his neck. Still unmoving, but vaguely aware of everything, Ryou felt a slight unnecessary breath on the back of his neck.  
  
"You have to learn to free yourself, Ryou." Bakura's voice whispered from behind. It was hard to tell if it was actually him, or the voice of the zephyr which had turned cold again, like the deep quality of the voice "Masks, facades take energy, but so does power." He felt the presence lean forward.  
  
The boy allowed his feathery hair to hide his eyes, which were so hard to hide from his Yami.  
  
"And you do want power, like everyone else, don't you?"  
  
"I'm not sure what I want." Said Ryou.  
  
The dead cool breath stretching to the back of his neck came with little gasps; a throaty chuckle, but not in a mocking manner. He didn't blink as a strange sweeping feeling ran up his legs and down his arms, which had nothing to do with the cold or his ragged prison garb. For a second, he felt suspended without gravity where he was sitting.  
  
The boy felt a tentative touch on his forearm, alerting him to his Yami's magic-devouring individual 'form', and he held his breath.  
  
"You'll never really know what you want," Bakura swallowed, sounding very grave "until you understand yourself."  
  
His death-touched arms crept around Ryou's shoulders with an intake of breath from the both of them. He locked his fingers on the other side, marveling in concern at how thin his shoulders were, and the slight shake that wracked his entire body through his arms.  
  
"You have to ~love~ yourself."  
  
He tried not to sniffle, but Ryou couldn't stay entirely silent in the arms of his Yami. However, only one tear flooded from his eyes.  
  
It was even hard to cry.  
  
"I d-don't know . . . " Trailing off, his stutter could not be filtered by his precarious self-control. The arms around him tightened; and while not warm as he reminded himself hugs should have been, it was comforting to what so little comfort he could recall in his lifetime.  
  
Bakura's semi-transparent head fell onto Ryou's shoulder, his whisper of hair tickling his cheek.  
  
Ryou fell asleep in his own arms; the arms of his Yami, of ~himself~. Crying and contented.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
He awoke with a shiver.  
  
As Ryou moved, his skin was very cool to the touch, and his Yami's form was no where to be seen. Still early, he saw the beginnings of an unremarkable sunset and the dawn of a day he knew was going to be unnerving.  
  
There were people in London, and he was never ready for people. It hit him with a pang that the going to the city wasn't particularly useful to any purpose--actually available to him, as he had no money, no ID, and no friends.  
  
Still, what else was there to do besides Bakura's bidding? Strangely enough, he was still wary of the ages-old spirit, and was ready to avoid all of such confrontation in the past, as well as he could in the future. He would do his best to slip out of dangerous situations once Bakura's control would be revived, Ryou decided.  
  
//Hmmph.// Bakura made a sound of disgust in the back of his mind.  
  
Only a glance allowed him to register the fact that there was no food around him to be found or scavenged, so he loaded energy awkwardly to braced legs, jumped--  
  
--and with a flap of brilliantly white wings, he flew toward the sight of the sunrise, and the oddly grotesque landscape it was currently awakening.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
It was simple pickings for someone who had close ties with a legendary thief--especially being a bird at times, because no one suspected ~birds~ as deliberate pickpockets, it was absurd.  
  
Ryou found a dirty looking pond in a park around the outskirts of the city, where he played the applicable part of a water bird up for early morning fishing. He was astounded by the number of people who were already awake and running or eating, or even nursing warm cups of gourmet coffee; the steam from both drink and breath swirling dreamily through the bare branches above.  
  
The habitation of people was evident throughout the entire area, as it was littered with nothings and 'tamed' in an unnatural way. They wandered about, walking, running, standing, sitting, smoking--  
  
His beak chattered once, and he tried not to look at them. People made him feel uncomfortable, and always wary because of their unpredictable nature regarding betrayal.  
  
//Oh, for the love of Ra, Aibou!// Bakura snapped gruffly //You'll never see these people again!//  
  
/I'm on the run!/ as he always had been, from feeling and emotion.  
  
He snorted //Not from ~them~.//  
  
A few he could see had pointed him out as a stark and utter contrast to the usual neighborhood of water fowl, and one even took a picture so openly Ryou was certain a little pink showed through his snowy plumage.  
  
Not even bothering with a retort, he hid himself in front of instinct, making sure his actions betrayed nothing.  
  
Even so, he couldn't pretend not to feel a bit guilty when he stole the wallet of a man sitting on the bench comfortably as he leaned on his pale- haired lover, but it was necessary.  
  
After landing in a deserted alleyway, flooded with the ambrosia aromas from nearby restraints, his claw-like hands gripped about two-hundred dollars gruffly, leaving the wallet on the street with the ID and credit cards still inside. Ryou hoped worriedly that whoever found it would turn it in immediately upon discovery.  
  
The nearby clothing shop was a shady adventure, deeply associated with dark styles and a thirst for anarchy, but it was certainly better than the telling prison robes he was wearing before. His Yami actually seemed contented with the big baggy pants of which hung entirely too many zippers and straps, as well as the plain shirt in the same precise shade of black, and especially the dark trench coat which was the only warm thing he could buy inside of the store. Finding the female cashier's look embarrassingly appraising, Ryou vacated it as quickly as he could.  
  
The style was odd for him and his pale complexion, but he put up with the stares by not looking at anyone until he found a quaint little diner on a street corner two blocks down.  
  
Though the waitress serving him did not seem too concerned for anything besides his large order of breakfast, after he ravenously devoured it all, she brought out another plate with a wide smile and a knowing wink. Finding that the second meal had not been charged on his tab, he thanked her profusely, before again getting out as fast as possible.  
  
Ryou had the sneaking suspicion that being on the run from a place like-- that, was not the ideal position to be lingering around people deserving of nothing more than peace.  
  
So after a white haze of wandering, trying to avoid people, he found himself sitting on a bench, watching people and extremely bored. He didn't want to use the money for anything and take advantage of another's wealth, and he also didn't want to waste any funds he could use in the future.  
  
Ryou mostly watched people, before actually falling asleep with the barely- warmed sunlight on his face.  
  
//Do you mind?//  
  
His Yami sounded irritated when he blinked after his initial jolt of awakening. Shifting a bit forward, he placed his weary eyes in the tender hold of his palms, blinking away blurriness.  
  
/No, not really./  
  
Bakura prowled about the city with cold vigor and no more purpose than Ryou besides taking advantage of the careless British folk unwary with their funds. The boy in black with the malice-filled eyes swerved and skirted expertly about the local street-markets even, much to Ryou's indignation, a ragged old street busker who had little more than ten dollars collected in his ragged guitar case.  
  
Then he grinned, making sure Ryou noticed that after only a few eventful hours, their money had nearly tripled.  
  
Once Bakura was satisfied, he found other things to do, mainly keeping a sharp eye out around a nearby flea market, of which he was determined to visit for some unfathomable reason.  
  
The Hikari consciousness drifted in absolute boredom, until a fresh wave of anticipation came through, alerting Ryou to a discovery of Bakura's.  
  
He held up a pendant in pure satisfaction.  
  
Even through the eyes of another, it was the sort of thing Ryou was sure he would avoid; the contorted depiction of some sort of bird, grinning manically in a swirled-standing glory. It was about the height of a walnut, but a great deal more slender and hung on a cheap piece of thin rope, as if made for a necklace.  
  
As it caught the light, Ryou noticed it was made from some sort of deep dark purple material; clear and slightly transparent. If he didn't know any better about Bakura's taste, he would have suspected the thing to be a 'prize' from a fifty cent machine.  
  
He sent a feeling of personal inquiry regarding the significance of such a gaudy piece.  
  
"Objects of power seem to have a way of coming back to me." Was all that Bakura offered in direct explanation. After that, during Ryou's long interrogation, with the only answers involved 'maybe's, 'whatever you think's and the like, he dropped the subject. Needless to say, the attempts were fruitless and the Hikari gave up broodingly before too long.  
  
He barely noticed the pendant flashing to unnaturally bright silver, dazzling in the sleeve hidden fingers of Bakura.  
  
/You're not going to put that thing around you--~our~ neck, are you./ Ryou commented.  
  
Bakura gave another one of his exaggerated indignations of a sort-of snort out to the open.  
  
//I,// he thought back, vainly, but in good humorous spirits //would never do such a thing as ~I~ do not have such a bad sense of style as you do. Our neck belongs to our Ring.//  
  
Ryou laughed before he could stop himself, with such an overflow of bliss that it bubbled out of his physical body as well, startling Bakura, as well as the others around them. Glaring around at them all, he stalked off to another block with fresh faces and ignorant shoppers.  
  
He slipped the pendant around his wrist without another broach of the topic. Ryou was fine with it, as he was extremely embarrassed for happiness. Which was proving a lot harder to obscure than it used to be.  
  
Their body wandered a bit more before it was dark enough for them to wizen themselves up for the night's way of life, and the thoughts of any place to stay.  
  
As the street lights flickered on, Bakura migrated toward the extreme sides of the street, blending in perfectly with his dark colors. He held his head low.  
  
//What now.//  
  
/I . . . don't know./ Ryou admitted.  
  
He let a slow breath whistle from between his teeth in anger, but managed to preserve their precarious bond together, which was still so far from perfect or entirely accepted. _Yet_, as they both hoped.  
  
The sidewalk was uneven with the overgrowth of roots. Bakura tripped a few times from his new buckled boots in the semi-darkness; only a few streetlamps still worked around there. With the combined worries of two paranoid souls, it became impossible to resist craning their neck and keeping an eye out for anywhere and everything.  
  
/You choose./ said Ryou doggedly.  
  
A cat jumped out, leaving them senselessly alert for a moment afterward. This was not the nice part of town.  
  
//We need to get out of here.// Bakura stated. //With no wand and no knife in times like these, we'll be pathetically helpless.//  
  
/Wait--wand? What are you talking about?/  
  
He didn't answer, instead set on turning the corner away from what was probably the sounds made by an unpleasant sort of group of people. The coat waved behind them, carried by the wind and Bakura's brisk walking pace, which he was trying to keep as smooth as possible.  
  
The sounds were becoming louder.  
  
Another nessicary turn gave them the unneeded glimpse of a dead end directly in their path. It was scattered with various forms of sloppy graffiti, that actually looked fresh enough to be disconcerting. He cursed vilely, turning as the murmurs of guffaws and dark amusement came closer.  
  
A nearby trash can saved them from unfortunate discovery. Bakura only moved when he was certain they had moved on to other mayhems.  
  
He turned--  
  
--Only to be caught by the gaze of another.  
  
//Blood eyes.// Bakura noticed, wildly looking around for a route of escape.  
  
"Oh, going so soon, son?" he grinned, showing a mouth of carnivorous teeth "I was going to invite you in for a cup of tea . . . "  
  
His eyes remained mocking to the body holding two troubled souls; /You can't get out./  
  
Amazingly, it was Ryou who took over, looking back calmly. Their interceptor held no lies in his expression, just an interesting feeling of mad loneliness, if he noticed right.  
  
Ryou frowned. He knew loneliness.  
  
"I would be pleased to accept your invitation."  
  
Bakura screamed warning obscenities in his head, but his Hikari kept firm control of their body. Only a slight tremble from the relentless manner his Yami was fighting him showed outwardly, as he stiffly moved forward under his own power.  
  
The strange man in the peculiar red coat led him down a busy residential street, setting a smooth pace that Bakura would have envied if he controlled himself.  
  
//What the hell do you think you're doing?!//  
  
His eyes flashed like jewels under the artificial yellow lighting, turning back to stare at the one in black, who simply stared squarely back.  
  
"Welcome to my home, little Ryou Bakura."  
  
It was too late to run. Bakura screamed inside his head, and it echoed painfully.  
  
But he walked in without turning back.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Sara, darling, to be on the mailing list I need to know your e-mail address ^^;;; Oh well, I hope you've read this chapter anyway ^^  
  
Okay, I tried to pace the flea-market scene, but it might have just ended up feeling rushed ^^;;; I can't tell, what do you guys think?  
  
Please review, especially if you can help me improve my writing! I would greatly treasure any feedback, both positive and negative.  
  
Thankies for sticking with it so far!  
  
*whisks off to angsty "Before I Fell Over the Rainbow" land*  
  
^o.o^  
  
giggleplex  
  
"Yami Krissy" , "Rowan and Sakura" , "Nine Bucks" , "crystal- chan" , "Tsukiko" , "onlyHAUNTED" , "Sachi-chan" , "DcSolstice" , "Lyn/Lin" , "Usa-chan Yuy" , "summer psycho" 


	5. Disreputable Host

*dodges rotten tomatoes* Erm . . . hi? I'm back?  
  
*runs from angry mob*  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
"There was a boy . . .  
  
A very strange, ~enchanted~ boy.  
  
They say he wandered very far,  
  
--very far--  
  
over land and sea . . .  
  
A little shy, and sad of eye  
  
but very wise, was he.  
  
And then one day,  
  
one magic day, he passed my way.  
  
While we spoke of many things,  
  
fools and kings,  
  
this he said to me:  
  
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn  
  
is just to love . . . and be loved in return'"  
  
- Massive Attack & David Bowie, "Nature Boy"  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
The sturdy brick archway stood triumphant against the contrast of gloom. It's unforgiving posture suggested great wisdom gained by age, and a cold unfeeling as if it was built like all the rest, with no fond love from it's mason. A bit of thinly-set light highlighted the gray mortar, which was only just beginning to slowly crumble around the edges.  
  
He had to admit of being startled by the shape that suddenly intercepted his view of the door; as dark as chaos, and as distantly mulling as something that would naturally be avoided. Rippling still in the non- existent breeze, he found the curiously inviting man an enigma, and profoundly interesting. Not holding that he had little choice in the matter of following him . . .  
  
But even the unnatural mental enticement could not compare with the tug he felt due to his own unsatisfied curiosity.  
  
And it was interest in the unexplained that led him to that particular door. Curiosity acting as a drive to understand the shady possibilities, and also acting as a drive to ignore the blood-curdling shrieks that echoed through his head, with nothing but the barest traces of a tremble.  
  
He smiled pleasantly; startling the man with the gesture, for it was far from forced.  
  
The spirit inside of him was obviously frightened beyond all senses of rational thought, and wasn't making much sense anymore. Ryou quieted him by pushing his presence gently away as the man studied him with foreboding in his vacant expression.  
  
/Besides, what is there left to fear?/  
  
"Hmm, such a strange child." Muttered the dark man, before opening the door with an ominous creak on it's hinges.  
  
Ryou shrugged, blinking mellow and slowly; still smiling.  
  
Smiling gave him an ignorable confidence, a useful manner in which to portray indifference to his surroundings. Such expressions had been originally used predominantly as an invitation of joy, however he had learned long, long ago that such expectations were obsolete in such times. Smiles had been perverted into lies over the years.  
  
Oddly enough, it was only recently that he figured out the gestures as the ultimate falsehoods. Ignorance drifting wildly between organized lines of everyday souls made it possible to even fool most with such simple gestures. Few paid any worthy attention to eyes, only familiar and uncomplicated things such as frowns and smiles.  
  
A slight fluxuation in the air's temperament alerted him to the completeness of the inside, though it was more open than what he remembered. Homes and houses sported cozy, comforting interiors to be taken full advantage of after a weary day away.  
  
He was enormously reminded of a solemn chapel, with gaping, gothic-style roofs as a joke to emulate the heavens. The spontaneously appearing man, from what Ryou could gather for himself, probably did not intend that particular effect on his visitors. Of course, from his tense stance, he did not look primarily accustomed to visitors; invited or otherwise.  
  
This ponderous revelation sobered him slightly. He had no intention of making his supposedly 'gracious' host any more eager of unwarranted suspicion than he already was. Such rash thinking had a tendency to lead to rash actions, of whose nature Ryou had attempted his best throughout his life to avoid.  
  
He also found it rather wise to break the tense silence that clung to the cool air like a skittish insect.  
  
"You have a very lovely home," white hair sprinkled over his shoulders in an instinctively irritated gesture, slowing and waving to and fro calmly to the draftiness of the open loft-apartment. Turning, his gaze softened at the dark-haired man, who carefully tucked his facial expression to one reminiscent of the emotion of a stone. The dark one stared into Ryou's eyes in response, without shame or troublesome care.  
  
He didn't blink.  
  
Bakura had quieted, though not without fuss and the self-assured certainty that his opinion had been heard. Echoing suggestions of the vilest Egyptian language imaginable vibrated in the back of his mind, but the Hikari had the self-restraint to ignore what he intended.  
  
That stare was making him feel extraordinarily uncomforted.  
  
"My name is Ryou . . . " he began, somewhat uncertainly, and wondering wildly ~why~ he had come into the lair of this devious stranger. Then he recalled the abnormal compulsion out on the street--which happened to be wearing down rapidly to that moment.  
  
Though feeling as though his stomach had caved in unpleasantly, he made a silent pledge to himself to make the most out of the situation. And he was absolutely certain he had guided himself out of worse situations.  
  
*Memories of cold. Memories of dark. Memories of the steel-shade rolling seas mirroring the empty sky . . . *  
  
He shook himself out of the unwanted recollection, and coincidentally, from that peculiar stare as well.  
  
/Absolutely certain./  
  
The man's eyes narrowed to the teen, his voice startlingly dark and deep "I know."  
  
Ryou winced, trying to manage a weak laugh. "Well, isn't that a coincidence!"  
  
He made a sound of disgust, turning away and finally flipping on the lights, which took the white one by surprise. He was just growing accustomed to the semi-darkness.  
  
The ceiling was even more vast than he had previously suspected. It was conceived of a sort of warm wood, oak perhaps, lain with careful precision and obvious skill. Though the furniture was sparse, the Hikari found himself proven dreadfully wrong from his previous suspicion that the neighborhood was a crime-infested ramshackle land [1].  
  
Not even allowing the boy to examine his unexpected surroundings, the host strode to the circular table in the center of the room. It looked as if it were placed to act as a variety of stereotypical interrogation situation.  
  
His snatch was quick, his glare precision for poisonous effects. Ryou stood, unbothered--until he glanced at the article the man was holding.  
  
His own face, so much younger than he remembered, reflected with a clammy and frightened quality on the newspaper page. And it was ~moving~.  
  
"RYOU BAKURA ESCAPES FROM AZKABAN"  
  
"Oh," he swallowed, suddenly feeling rather numb and taken with trembling "oh . . . oh my . . . "  
  
"You should be proud of yourself, Mr. Bakura," the man commented sarcastically "you are the single most valuable bounty in the Wizarding World at this very moment."  
  
Ryou turned slowly.  
  
"What? 'Wizarding World'? What are you ~talking~ about!" he exploded.  
  
This was too much of a coincidence, too pat for conspiracy. Vague ruminants of this assumed society in which he had never even ~heard~ of had been mentioned so often in his life that he knew it was a large part of the ruling of his life. He felt very hot, bothered and angry, now.  
  
He needed answers.  
  
//Hikari!//  
  
"What is this?! What is everyone speaking of!"  
  
//Calm yourself Hikari!//  
  
"I am ~so~ tired of sitting in the background, oblivious to things that were not meant to be noticed, but necessary to be understood!"  
  
//RYOU!!!//  
  
"Silence, fool." The man said softly.  
  
Something struck him, some force greater than that of nerves or physical action. It was enough for him to still himself, and falter momentarily in the face of the other man.  
  
"Such an impudent child." He said drolly, absurdly in pity of himself. "Do you have any idea what I am, ~who~ I am?"  
  
"I'm afraid you haven't told me who you are." Ryou responded tartly, sounding a great deal more reassured than the feeling in his stomach reflected.  
  
He snorted, glaring suspiciously. The glare was readily returned; Ryou was by no means having a jolly-good time either.  
  
A silence lengthened, as the two parties felt their suspicions rise and tighten like whipchords. The dark man finally shrugged off his blood red coat to the recluse of a nearby chair, making him appear all the more apocryphal in maneuverable black leather and a sour expression.  
  
His face was so pale--more so than even Ryou's own.  
  
"My name . . . " he hesitated "is Alucard."  
  
The Hikari didn't need a paranoid resident in the back of his brain, or even a magic eye to deem that answer as unsatisfactory and incomplete. Dogged misgiving trailed wildly about his brain until it was all he could think of. His Yami said nothing.  
  
"I'm not looking for a name." he said quietly.  
  
The man's eyes narrowed.  
  
"Names have little influence on the character one possesses. I am certain." He continued "Names are meaningless besides simple characterizations for sorting and filing."  
  
He stared at him for a moment, somewhat caught off guard by the seemingly out-of-place inquiry. The boy was proving to be considerably troublesome, and yet, proving to possess more depth than one would suspect.  
  
He was an intriguing, and perhaps, a bit tragic in a way that made little sense to the age-old Alucard: lord of death and reveling in it. From the pale, semi-concious face in the ads, he had suspected this infamous 'Ryou Bakura' to be some sort of low-level vampire--because true vampires in any service for the dark lord ~didn't~ get caught.  
  
The boy was destined to a life of innocence, of which he was sorely denied by meddling hands in their fanatical tirade against a single personification of everything they despised in their imperfect world.  
  
It amazed him on the impudence of humans, who assumed purposes in the darkest shade of dark, or the brightest shade of light. They, parasites that they were, did not understand the common concept of grayness and blurry ideals. Yet this boy, even from this brief conversation he had proven ~he knew~ such sore wisdom and necessary concepts for truth.  
  
His wide eyes and his bleached hair only just graced the complexity and oddity of the boy. And there were many secrets that could not be pried out of his mind by any means.  
  
Pity he had to kill him.  
  
Alucard chuckled darkly.  
  
"So it is then. However, how could you be a worthy study in my true character when it is much too corrupted for you to understand."  
  
"I understand corruption." Ryou commented quietly.  
  
"Not the finer parts." He hummed. "Nothing of what has made me the way I am."  
  
"I don't pretend to."  
  
"Silly, silly child."  
  
"What do you want from me?!" the boy yelled.  
  
"Nothing particular or extraordinarily difficult to understand. Just your life, little Mr. Bakura."  
  
Ryou's breath caught in his throat, cursing himself for his shortsightedness to such obvious manners. He was a bounty now; and ultimately incapable of defending himself in this situation that he didn't understand.  
  
Why was he frightened, anyway? His mind raced. Wouldn't death be better than having to spend the rest of his life looking for strangers driven by hate--for him?  
  
Wouldn't a complete absence of life save him from hurting ever again?  
  
/What is there left for me . . . /  
  
//Ryou! Damn you, you fool, you idiot boy and your tragic mind!//  
  
/Death is the only escape left for me./  
  
Alucard noticed the boy's eyes turn disturbingly blank as they focused on nothing in particular. His hands were limp, his throat tied.  
  
The bounty hunter made a sound of disgust.  
  
//NO! Death is wretched, Ryou, DEATH is shadow and MADNESS!//  
  
Something shimmered next to the boy.  
  
Quite randomly, another appeared, as identical as a twin, yet the manner in which this fairy-Ryou held himself was--  
  
--Absolutely murderous. Insanity-driven even. This was peculiar.  
  
"You worthless Hikari!" the twin screamed with a burning rage as he shook the other with a violent motion "DON'T YOU DARE LOSE YOURSELF OR YOU'LL SEND THE BOTH OF US TO THE SHADOW REALM FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!"  
  
Finally, the boy blinked with agonizing effort, finding his jaw gaping in horror. The bounty hunter was ignored, much to his spited indignation, as the boy simply collapsed muttering "nonononono . . . "  
  
It was pathetic.  
  
After an uncertain hesitation, but painful softening of his gaze, the dark twin lowered himself to Ryou's side, offering nothing but a hug. The two of them were a sight never to be imagined by the dark one.  
  
The dark one was absolutely astounded by the showing of the two boys. The tenderness and certain love was too complex to recall, and his memories too bitter to have ever been remembered.  
  
But this was too much, too much love, and the tears were real.  
  
So, apparently, was this apparition, as well, and it confused him in the meantime as he tried to suppress unwanted sentimentality.  
  
Once the boy's sobs quieted into precarious little sniffles, he spoke again, eyes flashing dangerously.  
  
"Explain."  
  
"Why do we need to explain ourselves to you?" the evil reflection grumbled with wicked eyes.  
  
"Oh, I'm rightfully curious."  
  
"Then your curiosity will have to remain unsatisfied."  
  
Alucard narrowed his eyes.  
  
With a smooth, efficient motion through his voluminous red coat, the boy had no time to react before the long silver pistol was poised at his too- thin neck without trouble. The long barrel shined unnaturally, shimmering with intricate motifs depicting beautiful, calming things. Unreal things.  
  
He seemed to get his point across without much fuss or tension on his part. The boy glared venomously down the silver barrel, to eyes much deranged by morbid amusement.  
  
"Bastard." He choked, his adam's apple confined with the pressure applied from the weapon.  
  
"Ah, but a ~curious~ bastard all the same."  
  
"You can't kill me." He sneered.  
  
"I suspected as much," he admitted "that is why," his head gestured ever-so- slightly to the side "I made sure at least one of my targets was a certain hit."  
  
Ryou peered down the barrel of the other gun, disturbed and shocked into silence. His face was still blotchy patches of red over paleness.  
  
Yami Bakura gave a very animalistic growl toward their assaulter.  
  
Alucard grinned contemptuously, suddenly exposing unnaturally lengthened canines and very white, very sharp teeth.  
  
Doing a bit of background calculation in his head, Ryou discovered the inevitable; if by some chance they were to both break free from the man's immediate line of fire, there was probably no way they could both survive this--this--dare he even ~think~ such childish things, ~*vampire*~.  
  
Therefore (he recalled vague practices during geometry class in the paragraph proof [2] from a life before time) there was really no chance of escape.  
  
Damnable doom and it's predictability.  
  
But there was a chance, he remembered.  
  
"It's a . . . long story." He said cautiously, in that peacefully melodic voice.  
  
The other two beings gazed upon him in surprise  
  
"And I have all the time in the world." The bounty hunter assured.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
[1] yay for Beck!!! Woo!!!  
  
[2] geometry *shivers* I hate math *chants and runs away*  
  
Reviewsies:  
  
crystal-chan - No problem, I'm just happy you read it ^^ I'm a total sucker: I'll be your slave if you read my writing ^^;;;  
  
Sarah - WOO!!! Got your e-mail ~_^ *blushies* wow . . . I'm flabbergasted that people like you actually like it ^_^ I hope this chappie wasn't dreadfully disappointing, due to my troublesome schedule and consequent slowness. Bleh. School is a wretched, wretched EVIL thing. It must be stopped!!! =P  
  
Ouvalyrin - I looked through your 'favorite stories' list soooooo many times! ^^ You have a good sense of good and bad--which makes me all the more astounded that someone like you would waste your time with my stuff ^^ meep! I'll try to continue!!!  
  
onlyHAUNTED - Waiiii, 'Kura is sort of a ditzy homicidal maniac at times, isn't he? Why else would he be spited all those times by the heros and stuff ^^;;; we love him dearly, though!  
  
Ice Blue X - Yay! *huggles Icee* You probably haven't stuck around with this, buuuuut I found your comment very ego-boosting and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and--thank you!!! ^^  
  
Elle-FaTe2x1 - lol so true . . . well, I'm glad you stumbled upon it, however briefly ^^ geez, this chapter is bound to be a disappointment cuz . . . nothing really happens ^^;;; BAH to my verbosity and boring-ness!!! *stabs boring-ness*  
  
Yami-Krissy - *snorts* Well of course I'm evil! *looks around* woah, did I just say that out loud o.O Woo! Can't wait for Kaideen . . . WAIIIIII!!!! ^_________^ so excited.  
  
Psychopathic Sixth Grader - Aww *huggles* thankyouthankyouthankyou! Do tell me if I am cutting off your air with my uber-sized huggles though ^^;;; I have a tendency to do that . . .  
  
Angel Rosz - Yay for Rosz!!! You're always there for positive feedback T.T it makes me feel so loved ^^  
  
Silver Queen - ^^ Well, if you're still wondering, read 'Alucard' backwards and you'll see what I mean ~_^ yay for Hellsing!  
  
R Amythest - *points* Methinks I responded, though I have recently misplaced my mind. Have you seen it anywhere lately? @.@ I'll probably be needing it for my trig final. ACK! Stupid brain--always running away from me! *cries*  
  
Windswift - Heehee, I'll continue ^^ I'm glad you liked it!  
  
Wintersong - *peers around* Umm, yeah . . . sorry about the wait . . . MEEP! *bows to the ground* I'M SO SORRY FOR THE WAIT!!! I'LL DO BETTER NEXT TIME!!! *sniffles*  
  
RBMIfan - *smiles* thank you dearly--but if this has any shounen-ai elements . . . will you hate me forever? T.T I love it so much . . .  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Weeeeeeeell, hopefully by next chapter, or at least the one after it, Ryou will be off to Hogwarts with a smile and a basket of chocolate frogs . . . or will he?  
  
*DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN*  
  
We'll see ^^ I'm not entirely sure myself--yet, anywho.  
  
But uh, what you're all wondering about, umm . . .  
  
giggle's reasons for not updating (because 'excuses' is such an unfitting word *coughcough*:  
  
- Crazy English teacher and his creepy smiles  
  
- Crazy Math teacher and the quadratics I never knew--until my first week of that class  
  
- Crazy nuns  
  
- Damn Catholics (I'm not condemning a religion, just those that are particularly convinced that the entire world should share their every ideal- -of which, any religion poses as an annoyance when perceived in that way)  
  
- Stupid prep school  
  
Soooo, yeah. That's a pretty good list of what has been nagging at me all this time . . . anywho T.T please don't give up on me!!!  
  
And if anyone's still there . . . would you please review? I have my math final tomorrow . . . and I'll be lucky if I pass. SO serious on this one.  
  
I think I'm going to go off and cry now  
  
giggle 


	6. Doubtful of Himself

Song of the Chapter: "We Suck Young Blood", by Radiohead (Hail to the Thief- -stupendous CD)  
  
NOTE: Hey, guys, I'm not going to send you music file via e-mail . . . or at least, not on the chapter alert thingamajig ^^ Icky viruses make me sick, and they probably have a similar effect on your compies, SO I won't send the alerts with attachments. Tell me if you'd like me to e-mail you again with the chosen music file, and I'll give it to you independently, if you're determined.  
  
Otherwise, go to radiohead.com and listen to the intro into the site. It's the song of the chapter . . . except you can't hear the creepy words and all that. Shameful, shameful ~_^  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
"There was a boy . . .  
  
A very strange, ~enchanted~ boy.  
  
They say he wandered very far,  
  
--very far--  
  
over land and sea . . .  
  
A little shy, and sad of eye  
  
but very wise, was he.  
  
And then one day,  
  
one magic day, he passed my way.  
  
While we spoke of many things,  
  
fools and kings,  
  
this he said to me:  
  
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn  
  
is just to love . . . and be loved in return'"  
  
- Massive Attack & David Bowie, "Nature Boy"  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
The tapping of his thin-skinned fingers halted. As his head remained lowered, and his face contorted from completely speculative, to mulling, it seemed as though he was doing some very thoughtful thinking. In the dim lighting and his gaze downcast to nothing in particular, his eyes looked particularly like deep dark depths of a darker world than most people were aware of. Ryou found himself overtaken by the strong similarity in his eyes with the Shadow Realm, which was amazingly comforting given it's purpose and past experiences with the hushed boy.  
  
At least it was something that he couldn't forget, something that wasn't so utterly unnatural in the murky halls of doom and psychological destruction he had become so accustomed to in the recent years. Folly mingled about his opinion of the other man, unseen but suspiciously sensed, so Ryou remained silent; his Yami was much better in stressing social situations than he.  
  
It was difficult to express oneself to others if they were the quiet type, however, he wondered with satisfaction if he would learn that smoothness of speech that Bakura was renowned for.  
  
The silenced continued to span for the immediate future, and gave no apparent plan to stop any time soon. His lips tightened to a nervous gesture, curled away, but definitely not a smile. The contortion was quick and trembling, which suddenly made him quite aware of just how tired he was.  
  
Stealing a glance at his Yami, he noticed that his other half was determinedly not looking away from the dark man on the opposite side of the table. Ryou recalled, indistinctly that looking away from one's direct eye- contact in most societies was suspicious behavior.  
  
Instead, he fingered Bakura's gaudy pendent in one of his numerous coat- pockets, finding it startlingly warm to the touch of his fingertips. Of course, he found that his hands were almost always too cold.  
  
Still, it was rather comforting somehow.  
  
"You must forgive me," Ryou jumped in his seat at the unexpected drawl of the dark man, Alucard "but you must admit your story seems rather far- fetched."  
  
Bakura snorted contemptuously, his upper lip curling into a familiar sneer "Not as far-fetched as many."  
  
"So true."  
  
"You believe us, don't you?" Ryou said, out of curiosity more than anything.  
  
Alucard chuckled deep in his throat, darkly turning away. "I do not trust anyone, not now, not in these times."  
  
"But you believe us." The boy pressed on, trying not to yawn.  
  
Those red eyes were calculating and comparative.  
  
"No, of course not."  
  
Bakura made a sound reminiscent of a growl, as his barriers strengthened considerably out of more than simply discontent.  
  
"But I wonder . . . " Alucard suddenly allowed his eyes to narrow a fleeting moment, and Ryou was startled. There it was again, that unexpected sense of humanity behind those inhuman eyes and too-pale complexion. Pity, or something resembling it, he realized.  
  
"Wondering means nothing." Said the Yami.  
  
"Wondering can lead to so many more possibilities than you could imagine, O Impatient One."  
  
"Don't lecture me on the nature of humans, vampire, I have had no such ties to their world for centuries."  
  
"And yet you are a parasite to one?"  
  
The room went tense.  
  
"Can we please leave these philosophical discussions for another time?" the boy cut in, annoyed. "We have more important things to tend to, then an argument in which I am sure you are both ~quite~ determined to win."  
  
Alucard felt surprised at the variance and initiative of the quiet child. "Excellent idea."  
  
The Yami spirit rose swiftly, moving closely to his weary Hikari whose vision was decidedly doubling at the late hour. With their mirroring apparel, mirroring appearance, and mirroring survival stress, their contrasting expressions appeared unnaturally odd.  
  
"I won't let you kill him."  
  
"Now predicting the future--a rare gift indeed."  
  
"With all due respect Mr. Alucard, don't attempt witless sarcasm when you have no possible idea of what you could be initiating."  
  
Again, the two inhuman characters in the room turned a startled look to the young one, or at least, startled as they could allow. /I want this over and done with,/ thought Ryou, highly irritated in his somnolent dizziness and dry mouth. /If I am going to die tonight, I want it through quickly so I won't have to suffer any more of this absurdly immature situation./  
  
"For being as wise and as great as you both claim, you act like little more than children." He growled softly. "~Get on with it~"  
  
With that troublesome and absolutely useless silence returning to utter revelation, Ryou noticed that his reprimand was not going along nearly as he had hoped. A clock struck the hour somewhere about the lofty apartment.  
  
And quite suddenly, all chilled aloofness seemingly forgotten, Alucard began to laugh.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
The buoyant boy smiled. Smiled wider, that is, because he always smiled. And it was a particular trait of which he was most fond of.  
  
Of course that bubbly sort of happiness had absolutely ~nothing~ to do with skipping school, or visiting an infinitely interesting foreign country at no cost of his own, or being able to, shall we say, ~express~ himself in ways that the general public would find most unbelievable. Of ~course~ not.  
  
He almost giggled to himself out loud, just in awe and contentment that he could be there at that moment, under those extraordinary (not to mention relatively harmless, as far as his record went) circumstances.  
  
He needed something to huggle.  
  
//Patience Hikari.// his Yami cooed soothingly.  
  
Best. Huggle. Victim. EVER!  
  
//Why do you make that seem as though it isn't a promising prospect?//  
  
/Dunno,/ his face metamorphosed into a wry grin /you tell me./  
  
Their good-natured bickering halted once they heard a soft ~*click*~ of the door to the room from behind them. Yuugi Motou pivoted around quickly in his homely wooden chair, feeling his mass of unruly hair disturb itself in the movement. A stray strand of his blonde bangs intercepted his perception, so he brushed it away hurriedly to pay more attention to the old man who had entered.  
  
He was the tall and thin sort, rather than short and plump as most old men were prone to be, favoring a slight hunch in his posture that accentuated his approachableness. He sported a long beard, silver with years, and knowing, twinkling eyes behind reading glasses and faint crinkles. His hat was pointy and a most startling shade of violet, while his eccentric robes matched it impeccably.  
  
Yuugi trusted him immediately.  
  
"Ah, Mr. Motou I presume?" the man smiled calmly.  
  
He scrambled up with the undignified clumsiness of one who had grown a great deal in a short span of time. While the boy was still noticeably shorter than others his age, he had grown nearly five inches that past summer, which left him physically drained and even leaner than before.  
  
Feeling slightly in awe of this old man with the ease of his pace telling of supreme self-confidence, he bowed low and courteously to express his immediate respect.  
  
"Yes sir." He said, suddenly finding himself quite shy.  
  
"We've been expecting you for a week, now." The old man gazed down at him fondly, examining him. The boy didn't seem like much, but his magical auras were mind-boggling in their brightest magnificence.  
  
Yet for all that potential, here sat a young, innocent, and shy young man who had only just discovered his potential recently.  
  
Yuugi scratched the back of his head apprehensively. "Ah, well, I had to prepare myself to leave, which took awhile--"  
  
"Do not worry yourself, Mr. Motou, I had no intention of reprimanding you. I understand."  
  
The boy with the conspicuous hairdo shut his mouth with a snap, inspiring a bit of excess pain from the translation spell performed less than an hour ago. He flushed easily, in shame.  
  
"My apologies," the man looked genuinely concerned "I did not mean to sound frank, but we have much to discuss. Too much, I'm afraid."  
  
"Oh no no no, I'm sorry for being so dense and everything." He gave a goofy sort of grin "I've been in a plane for the past day or so, and my brain feels like mush at the moment."  
  
The old man chuckled, suddenly clucking in disapproval.  
  
"Where are my manners, dear me, my name is Professor Dumbledore, the current headmaster of this school."  
  
"Pleased to meet you."  
  
A small silver machination began whirling incessantly without any apparent use or purpose. It stood lopsided, flipping from one side to the other, yet remaining in the same position on the headmaster's desk. Yuugi actually thought it quite cute.  
  
Dumbledore stilled it with a strict look and a stilling gesture that was reminiscent of a parent holding their child back from a street before they looked both ways.  
  
His deep azure eyes focused back on the young man sitting on the opposite side of the desk, turning abruptly sobered and businesslike.  
  
"Now, I'm certain you're wondering what sort of 'business' this trip to Britain requires."  
  
Sensing a little more, a deeper purpose than any pleasantry could convey, Yuugi felt himself gently pushed away, which he was only relieved to comply with.  
  
"Why of course." Said Yami, his esoterically-shaped almond eyes narrowing curtly.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
"So you're saying," the pharaoh began skeptically "that there is a mad maniac who has no sense to stop destroying the world as we know it . . . "  
  
"I suppose that's one way of describing it, yes."  
  
" . . . and it is therefore in my best interest to relay all knowledge I possess to you, in order to kill one man and therefore make the world a brighter, happier place for all girls and boys?"  
  
"Alas, I doubt that plan could be as effective as what I am about to propose."  
  
Yami bit back another nasty comment.  
  
"You will stay here, and be the knowledge. I have no intention of dismissing you out of the war against Voldemort, when you are perfectly capable of doing anything yourself."  
  
"You seem convinced that I was waiting for this privilege with all positive enthusiasm."  
  
"From what I understand," Dumbledore said wisely "there is little that I cannot actually ~allow~ you to do at the school. Of course, what I understand about your particular branch of magic is very little, but if you are at all concerned about leaving your friends behind, certain accommodations could be afforded. Besides, if you are at all the sorcerer I suspect, you will need a . . . 'court' of sorts, to maximize your power."  
  
"But I'm afraid you ~still~ haven't answered why I should remain here, and not return home where I could remain infinitely more comfortable."  
  
Dumbledore blinked. This was a most unexpected change of events . . . he had suspected this wide-eyed Yuugi Motou to be driven by the purpose of helping others . . . what was this boy implying . . . ?  
  
Yet the boy's gaze suddenly softened back to the point previously, taken with himself and transitorily focused on himself. His mouth tightened.  
  
The old man felt his inner peace of thought tilt out of balance and into a panicked overdrive. / . . . The character of the boy is turning out to be precisely the opposite of what he had assumed . . . damn you, Albus, you shouldn't assume anything, that tells of weakness . . . yet how on earth- what do I ~say~ to the boy?!/  
  
Amazingly, it was the boy who somehow realized the purpose behind kindness and heroism for himself.  
  
"Because it's ~right~" Yuugi whispered. And that was that.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
The chuckles turned into full-blown cackles as he threw back his darkly glorious head and threw his chosen expressions of mirth into the cool air like broken kites. His hands gripped imaginary coattails, balancing on the table and shaking with every laugh and mirroring the movement in his lower jaw.  
  
The boy scowled, glaring to his more venomously-glaring counterpart, hands drifting to clutch the sides of the wooden chair in obvious disapproval. His eyes narrowed to wicked slits.  
  
The older-appearing man seemed not to notice.  
  
Ryou finally felt his lip tremble, and his nostrils flare in indignation.  
  
"Shut up." He hissed, considerably annoyed.  
  
Alucard responded by, if at all possible, laughing harder and more boisterously into the seeping silence.  
  
With an angry pound on the table, Yami Bakura dove into the mix.  
  
"You heard him, stop this infernal laughing you insignificant little wretch![1]"  
  
"Oh, ~that's~ rich!" the vampire cooed, finally calming himself down enough to comment and defend himself through his giggles prone to carnival-like enthusiasm. Rather disturbing, once the other two contemplated it.  
  
Their expressions tightened, as the dark one's face was bowed down and his hair forming a ragged inky-black curtain around his expression.  
  
Ryou looked at his Yami, who still looked close enough to explode into darkness. That expression on his face was making him uneasy; he hadn't seen that look for years. Since, he swallowed, Battle City.  
  
Whether it was the time to simmer down, or a supposition on the purpose of Ryou's agitation, the Yami closed his almond eyes and his shoulders finally sagged to relaxation.  
  
"No matter," the other man finally spoke up, his face still bowed like a livid little boy "I believe you, and your complacent story."  
  
The Hikari blinked.  
  
"Why?"  
  
His breath racked in with an unintentional hiss, as if he were agnowledging a sudden pain. In fact, his eyes, which had just become visible again over dark circles imprinted on his ivory cheeks, expressed that same soreness through undeniable misery.  
  
Ryou noticed with a faint jolt, that his questions were not at all satisfactory to the situation. He was asking all the wrong things in all the wrong places.  
  
This man, this very very lonely man was much like himself in both Yami and Hikari contexts. And he thought through patterns distinctively argumentative, stubborn, and avoiding.  
  
He would gain nothing by skirting around the bluntness and plainness, as he might with an ordinary, worriless soul.  
  
Leaning forward, his expression softened, forming those sincerely expressive large eyes, small nose, and thin set mouth. Alucard focused on him menacingly.  
  
"What has hurt you so," he whispered softly, without further echo "what event has made you the way you are, Mr. Alucard?"  
  
The vampire tried to turn away in disgust, but Ryou held the fire in his eyes and the passion in his heart.  
  
"I can sense it in your eyes. Your eyes . . . your eyes are empty, as they simply should not be. Your existence is obviously swarmed in self-doubt and self-deceit, and I ask of you, with my open soul, what is it that you still remain afraid of?"  
  
Alucard flinched now, noticeably disturbed, but ponderous. He still seemed unsure of the young man's purpose of accusing an ages-old creature with a penchant for dark and otherwise incapable things.  
  
But things were not always that way for the man in the loft apartment, in the shady complex. Things such as that could never be explained with sustained cruelty.  
  
Loss was what made dreadful things.  
  
"TELL ME."  
  
Yami Bakura looked at his young Hikari with a distressed expression, suddenly feeling the energies in the room change drastically. The natural magic that existed in all places seemed to still itself at that moment, and even the physical air chilled as the lights grew suspicious and dim.  
  
The world in every sense imaginable shifted under Ryou's gaze. Alarmed, Yami Bakura realized that he had only seen this effect on reality once before. Once before, in his time before time . . .  
  
Both the ring and the eye glowed and glittered in a glowering fashion, comprising themselves with the generally weak and unstable power of the Hikari soul. Their victim was the vampire, who actually reflected an expression of distress plain as a child's.  
  
Ryou's eyes were opened wide, power seeping around the edges of his soul with the consistency of maple syrup.  
  
"I can't tell you."  
  
The effect abruptly halted, the lights became yellow and bright again. Ryou shook himself, as if out of a daze.  
  
Bakura braced his arms for Ryou's disoriented fall to the side, cradling his soft head in his arms like a lost child's. Patting the boy's hair awkwardly, the shimmer of eyes blinked up at him in confusion.  
  
/What happened?/ Ryou seemed to gasp in his mind-voice, as he groaned and suddenly clutched his head in pain. Even Yami Bakura saw the red of throbbing that framed his eyesight.  
  
His eyes shut tightly as he tried to turn away from the light.  
  
//I'm not sure,// responded the darker soul, warily.  
  
As the Hikari struggled in his arms with the shot of unexpected fire through his head, which was still burning with a passion, Bakura glanced back over to Alucard with an unreadable expression. His mouth formed a taught line and his brows furrowed. He was beginning to suspect that they were not necessarily enemies, not like the enemies he recalled from his life.  
  
The vampire's lost appearance, staring off to the side with his head nearly balanced entirely on his shoulder, only accentuated that gut-feeling. If there was anyone doomed, he realized, it was not he, nor his light.  
  
His matted hair hung with tiredness and wasted vengeance. The eyes were open, glassy, and portraying that he was so close to giving it all up.  
  
"I can't tell you," he whispered through chapped, blood-red lips, not looking up "I am unready for facing the entirety of my past."  
  
Ryou shuddered and his eyes tightened.  
  
"That makes for a weak soul." He mumbled blindly, gripping himself further into Bakura's version of the black trench coat.  
  
"A poisoned soul." The Yami added, trying to adjust their true body before it slipped to the floor.  
  
Those dark eyes, resembling empty, infinite tunnels slackened their focused perception of the world.  
  
He spoke again, weariness etched into the edges.  
  
"I care little. It is you I have been waiting for. You my subconscious has so eagerly awaited . . . "  
  
"Huh?" Ryou's eyes shot open, he stared at the dark-haired man in profound surprise.  
  
He didn't understand at all, Bakura realized with a dread-filled jolt. Did this mean--did this mean that all of this was unintentional? That his Hikari . . . ~really~ had no perception of what he possessed? The potential . . .  
  
"You . . . I am unsure of what to call you." Alucard said thoughtfully, quietly "You are weak--yet you are most stunningly powerful behind your naivety."  
  
The young man still mirrored the confusion of having absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Bakura found himself stiffened, his mind swimming in--  
  
--horror. This was destructive, it could lead to so much, and yet he couldn't speak to explain.  
  
"I-don't understand" Ryou flinched away, averting his eyes to his hands.  
  
"You don't need to."  
  
Bakura made a faint choking sound  
  
" . . . Just kill me." Alucard continued  
  
"I can't do that!"  
  
He sounded scandalized. The vampire seemed not to notice.  
  
Rising as though in a trance, he scooped a silvery piece of clothing out of a trunk behind his chair. It whispered with the murmur acting as the faintness of a gentle chime at midnight. The shiny cloak that was finally thrown onto the table was dreadfully beautiful.  
  
Alucard continued his absent instructions without pausing to let Ryou voice his protests. He searched through his large red coat while speaking.  
  
"The bounty on my head holds enough emotion to clear you of all governmental charges--I can assure you. A silver bullet will kill me, as much as I act out superior invincibility. Vampires are immortal--not ~invincible~, thank the heavens." He gave an ironic little smile.  
  
Finally, he slapped one of his lovely, deadly pistols onto the wooden surface of their table.  
  
Alucard stared into Yami Bakura's eyes, the first eye-contact since Ryou's surprising uprising. This sudden gesture shook him out of his horror-filled reverie, forcing him to hold his breath before the distress of everything overtook him completely.  
  
"Take my spent corpse to the School." Alucard instructed directly to him "You know where it is."  
  
Not bothering to think of what that particular knowledge implied, he responded hollowly "I do."  
  
No one spoke for a moment. It seemed unnecessary, despite the questions roaming unsettled in each mind in the single room.  
  
Through their night of revelations and accusations and variations . . . they all remained the same inside, no life-changing realizations.  
  
Ryou was too confused to comment, preferring to look at it logically than be stuck in a situation he didn't understand. ~Anything~ was better than a situation like ~that~.  
  
Alucard held his menagerie of emotions carefully checked and distanced. They didn't need to understand him, he just wanted to be free-there was nothing left for him now. He had had heard that expression used by ordinary humans, ordinary muggles, in traumatically dramatic situations, often under his own gunpoint. But they were weak and knew nothing of life spent far too much.  
  
And Bakura knew too much. He was piecing the clues together . . . and 'the School' was really the only place he could afford to take himself, and his dangerous Hikari at that point. He just hoped they would accept them somehow . . .  
  
"Use my pistol, little Ryou. It should all end quickly."  
  
His body and mind felt rather numb, and he shifted his fingers from a clenched to unclenched position, feeling the strength wane from his bones. He couldn't ~do~ this, could he?  
  
/I wonder . . . / Ryou stopped himself.  
  
Was he becoming . . . what they had told him he was?  
  
Was he a murderer?  
  
Was he going to ~enjoy~ such an act?  
  
He was overwhelmed.  
  
The vampire was amazingly calm in the entirety of the situation. Ryou was torn, finding those eyes boring into him, through him, and expressing to him their tragic wishes.  
  
He was cruel--then again, he was merciful. Yet he was beginning to finally discover that those traits were not so different.  
  
/Shades of gray . . . shades of gray . . . /  
  
"I . . . " the boy still faltered.  
  
"Kill me." He insisted, hissing in anticipation.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
[1] Quote commonly used by yours truly ~_^  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Lalala *crashes cymbals*  
  
It's done! WOO!!! *blows kazoo*  
  
Sorry it took a while. Even when I haven't updated Sanc in between, I'm still rather rusty with all of this fast-typish stuff XP  
  
Nothing exciting, really, in the life of giggle. Besides getting a 4.0 at a prep school, that is *pats herself on the back*  
  
Oli: My god, you're pathetic.  
  
O.O Why did you seem so ~old~ all of the sudden?! *cries*  
  
Kuja: You're to old for me . . . what if it's contagious and stuff . . . *inches away from Oli*  
  
Oli: *looks crestfallen*  
  
SO MANY REVIEWS *falls over* I'm so amazed . . .  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
woof - WOO! Hellsing, and yummy, yummy vampies with pretty pistols. WAIIIII!!!  
  
Ouvalyrin - Aww, thankies! I did alright on the math final, surprisingly enough, and somehow earned an A out of the class ^^ I'm so happy, it's disturbing ^_^ lol, I do that too. I also need to take some people off the hotlist *growls* buuuuut, that's a whole 'nother story . . .  
  
Psychopathic Sixth Grader - I hope that's a good thing ^^ *silence* O.O's back lol  
  
onlyHAUNTED - I'm sowwy--but I'm back, teehee! I hope this is soon enough . . . I worked on this chappie when I could, and I'm afraid it's even more confusing than the rest T.T sometimes I disgust myself.  
  
Windswift - lol, unfortunately, I dun think Ryou likes all that chocolate ^^ has to keep up his lithe figure and all. Heehee, so true. The Bakura duo has some SERIOUS issues.  
  
~* Amanda Tom Marvolo Riddle *~ - Thank you ^^ Yes, yes, uhhh *looks around suspiciously* it--does ^^  
  
Angel Rosz - I feel really pathetic because you left such a pretty, delicious-looking review that you obviously put a lot of thought into-and yet I can barely say anything T.T I think I have it figured out, but you know me, I'd probably use my sick humor and turn Ryou into a ~girl~ or something like that  
  
Rei: *coughcough*  
  
Ermm . . . yeah . . . but thank you for the good karma! *huggles* I think it actually paid off . . . heehee, I totally agree. Except I find geometric reasoning obscenely easy . . . where did all the ~easy~ stuff go *cries* btw, how did you you do? ^^  
  
RBMIfan - Aww, you're the best *huggles* but about the R thing-I do the same thing )  
  
Compliments, however, make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And that's a good thing, if you'd like me to update quickly ^^  
  
Thank you so much for reading this so far! ^^  
  
giggleplex 


	7. Rainy Day

Song of the Chapter: "Run" by Air  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
"There was a boy . . .  
  
A very strange, ~enchanted~ boy.  
  
They say he wandered very far,  
  
--very far--  
  
over land and sea . . .  
  
A little shy, and sad of eye  
  
but very wise, was he.  
  
And then one day,  
  
one magic day, he passed my way.  
  
While we spoke of many things,  
  
fools and kings,  
  
this he said to me:  
  
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn  
  
is just to love . . . and be loved in return'"  
  
- Massive Attack & David Bowie, "Nature Boy"  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
It was the next Wednesday when they actually started something constructive in the name of their intention.  
  
Yuugi was ~hardly~ put off in the meantime. The castle was endlessly fascinating to him, and he often found himself wandering deserted hallways, while though silent, which whispered with that large aching silence that was a testament to the magnificence of their years. Gaping yesterdays had made its mark on the ancient castle, and Yuugi was amazed.  
  
Gothic archways strung with gold and golden shades of polished wood donned every doorway, and even some doors that just as you went in, you came back out again. They were ordinary tricks by the spirits of the castle, he discovered, and the spirits were lonesome enough to be amused.  
  
He giggled along with them, though his laughs were empty with the impending stressor.  
  
No matter how sincerely he attempted, the impending curiosity of his purpose there was stifling to say the least. Nothing really fit together-- not that anything usually did in his life--but the unexplainable feeling of dread often consumed him into melancholy mulling. He spent hours of worrying on the sides of the halls, his head and back resting on mysterious murals which taunted him with secret smiles and prancing depictions of free creatures.  
  
Usually he could count on Yami, with his millenniums of experience, to offer some sense of wisdom to still his fears. But even Yami was swimming blindly.  
  
They weren't even sure which side of ~this~ complication was fighting for goodness and tranquility. This Albus Dumbledore was leading them to some sort of a sniper mission, he could sense it, and Yuugi was startled. He seemed like a pleasant man, yet who with a pure heart would kill someone in cold blood?  
  
As he read the loopy-written piece of parchment on his bedside table Wednesday morning, he and his Yami agreed that they would decide their place, if anywhere, today at the meeting assembled that afternoon.  
  
He dressed in black all around, which brought out the interesting curves of his eyes to particular prominence, and gave his reflection in the mirror a sort of permanent half-glare under florescent bangs. Snapping on a few heavy buckles and no less than three studded belts adorning his waist, the end result was rather intimidating despite his size. Which was exactly what he intended.  
  
Finally, he threw on a black, common robe over his arms as he whisked out of the door in a brisk pace set by his strong, known determination. Harsh, steel heels clicked on the marble as he made his way through now-familiar halls.  
  
As he did not feel the inclination to button up his over-robe, it swirled behind him with the consistency of oil in churning water. The patterns made by the loose cloth were lovely among shuddering candlelight placed conveniently on the walls.  
  
The intricately-carved double-doors were closed when he came upon them. Bracing himself and his delicate hands strung with numerous gold and silver rings he had picked up from convenient friends and his renown work in Egypt, he flung the doors open dramatically with both arms, not even slowing his pace in the slightest.  
  
He finally halted in front of the startled onlookers with a somewhat glazed expression of indifference, adopted readily from Yami's personality. Black robes churned ominously for a second, before faltering, as if dead.  
  
The only distinguishing factor of the room was a plain, yet useful, oval table in the center. There were a few of what he supposed were ordinary- looking witches and wizards scattered haphazardly around the table in improvised groups, and they looked upon him in surprise. The slightly reproving glares through (often times) glasses made him wonder if they were the faculty of the peculiar school.  
  
The ever-wise Professor Dumbledore stood slowly at the head of the table.  
  
"Ah, and there is Mr Mutou. I trust this meeting is ready to begin?"  
  
Not sure precisely what to do, he nodded slowly, adopting a nearby seat to sit upon. His otherwise solitary neighbor was a tall, thin man with dark hair that looked as though it had been cut with a ragged knife. He glared at the boy, folding his arms contemptuously.  
  
Yuugi felt his eyes narrow.  
  
"As far as we know, Voldemort has been unusually silent following his recently successful break-out of the wizard prison of Azkaban." The old headmaster appeared suddenly a decade or two older, and as if he were resisting the urge to sigh heavily "However, this brief respite is yet another thing we cannot count on. It seems as though the Dark Lord has little planning in which he relays to others."  
  
The man next to Yuugi fixed Dumbledore with an unfazed stare.  
  
A red-haired motherly sort of woman leaned forward, pursing her lips and holding herself in check of apparent calm. Yuugi felt the effect of the puzzle's slight empathetic abilities, his churning stomach expressing the tension around the room.  
  
"Do we know who escaped?" Asked the woman quietly.  
  
"Unfortunately, not precisely." Responded the old man warily "We can only assume that Voldemort would be thorough in his mission."  
  
A heavy silence followed.  
  
"So ultimately, everyone we had worked so hard over the years to capture-- those who many of us have died to stop--they're ~free~?"  
  
Yuugi felt anxious, shifting in his chair to better accommodate the trapped feeling in his stomach, but it did little to calm it. No one around the table seemed to need to confirm the voice of the red-headed woman.  
  
A dark-skinned man with another grave (ordinary) expression felt a need to voice his part. "The ministry is unsure of the severity of the situation, however, the Dementors have most certainly joined the Dark Lord's forces."  
  
"Is that it, then?" spoke a graying man, who was abnormally pale under a fringe of dusty brown hair "Quite honestly . . . what can we do? There is no prison to send them to . . . so" he swallowed "must we--"  
  
"Catch them and kill them." Confirmed the sour man next to Yuugi. "It is all we can do."  
  
"Severus, I doubt that it is truly that dire . . . "  
  
"If you were to kill them," said Yuugi suddenly, silencing them all "you would be no better than they."  
  
Nods of agreement echoed, catching the reincarnated Pharaoh with relief. So they ~did~ have the best interests in mind. He straightened his torso, not looking so dreadfully short in the face of the rest.  
  
They seemed to be more relaxed of him, now. Except for Severus, who looked at him as if he were something unsavory found on the bottom of his shoe.  
  
"Do you have any better ideas?!" the man hissed.  
  
"That is why I called him, and you, here, Severus." Dumbledore's voice rang of deadly calm and all was silent and obedient again. The man had a commanding presence.  
  
//I think it is his beard.// Yami put in randomly.  
  
/He's old enough to have been ~their~ headmaster, I think./  
  
"Pardon my forgetfulness for not introducing him sooner; this is Yuugi Mutou, a man joining us from Japan."  
  
"Are you from the Japanese Ministry?" asked someone.  
  
"Erm . . . " he was rather confused.  
  
"He is unaffiliated with any outside power as of yet." Dumbledore offered.  
  
"Why is he here?" asked a tall, balding red-head "I'm sorry to be frank, but what benefit does he present to us?"  
  
"His magic, from what I understand, could help us considerably."  
  
"What sort of magic is this?" the room buzzed with whispers of suspicion.  
  
"I have yet to experience it." Dumbledore admitted, shrugging. "But power is one thing that does not lie."  
  
/Is he power-hungry?/ Yuugi abruptly wondered, blood draining from his tanned face.  
  
//I do not believe that is what he meant, Aibou.// Yami thought wisely.  
  
/What did he mean then?/  
  
Severus did not look at all convinced. Neither did a tight-lipped, strict sort of woman sitting to Dumbledore's right. Her hair was bound back in a tight bun, which was actually so tight that it began pulling at the edges of her eyes . . . because they were oddly almond shape and wrinkle-less, like a cat's.  
  
"Let's see this ~power~ of yours, then." Sneered Severus.  
  
"I don't trust him, Dumbledore." The woman whispered to the weary Headmaster, supposing that Yuugi couldn't hear.  
  
/Funny how we don't trust them, and they are suspicious of ~me~./  
  
//You have that affect on people.// noted his Yami fondly.  
  
/Am I really that suspicious . . . ?/  
  
"I would rather not abuse what I was gifted with."  
  
Severus stood suddenly, looking menacing and intimidating as Yuugi shrunk back slightly.  
  
"Get out!" he exploded, obviously a man under too much stress to think without anger. "Get out if you have nothing to aide us with!"  
  
"Severus . . . " began the Headmaster hesitantly.  
  
"Hush."  
  
Everyone in the room stared at Yuugi, or more specifically, Yami. The Pharoah, the Game King, the Shadow ruler.  
  
His eyes were narrowed in anger.  
  
"Nothing is keeping me here," he continued "perhaps I should leave. I have no place in your foreign affairs, I have no reason to help you.  
  
"I know nothing of what you are, what you stand for, and honestly," his eyes flashed dangerously "~neither do I particularly care~."  
  
"Now, Mr Mutou, don't be hasty . . . "  
  
Concerns and whispers flew around the conference room behind him, as he whipped around, intent on leaving despite Yuugi's slight protests with little substance. His tumult of anger at them all, and his short temper inspired by a childhood of royalty fell prominent in his conciousness.  
  
He wouldn't hurt them . . . he couldn't hurt them, as Yuugi was adamant about it . . . he would walk away . . .  
  
Someone grabbed his arm.  
  
Instinctively, he lashed out with pure, undiluted shadow magic and the world was swarmed with darkness.  
  
Stiffled screams sounded as echoes around him, but he was unafraid as the power ruffled his hair and eyelashes as wind would. The swirling vortex was under his control, and he glowed with the lavish semi-personality of the puzzle and it's abundance of power.  
  
They were turning and fainting and falling to become nothing more than lonely shades with no memory of themselves. Soon, they would become nothing, they wouldn't even remember to feel pity for themselves.  
  
Yami grinned.  
  
"No . . . no . . NO!" a strangled gasp.  
  
/YAMI!/  
  
The Hikari tore away his control, shifting into a ray of light that broke and cut through the hungry shadows as if parting water with a hot knife. Yuugi released all he knew . . .  
  
The souls about him, beginning to realize who they were once again.  
  
Twisted and withering among the shadow, wings appeared on bare back and his eyes grew so wide as if to consume his face. He hissed.  
  
//Yuu . . . gi?//  
  
He faltered, and all swarmed back to the conference room rapidly. Yuugi was in shade form, gasping on the floor, and Yami stared at his hands.  
  
All of the members of this odd, obviously secret society looked to the identical pair.  
  
"Yuugi!" the ancient spirit collapsed to his side, all honor and appearance forgotten for the sake of his Aibou, his balancing Hikari. He swept him up in his arms, as shades of the same soul became just as solid as their other sides to each other, and wept on his shoulder, muttering strange things.  
  
The rest of the room remained silent in fear, or perhaps too startled to explain or to act. Yami and Hikari fed off one another till they came to notice the world again. Yuugi situated himself back into his body, Yami shamefully stored back into his mind.  
  
He stood, taking in a shuddering breath.  
  
"Please . . . you must not startle--me." He tried to explain.  
  
"Th-that wasn't ~you~!" cried the strict woman, now looking close to breaking down.  
  
Yuugi sighed. It would have been so much easier if they had believed that . . .  
  
"You must understand . . . we can't release you upon the world with such terrible power." Dumbledore spoke up quietly.  
  
"Are you a dark wizard of some sort?!" cried a man in the back.  
  
/Dark . . . /  
  
"I suppose you could say that." Tried Yuugi.  
  
Everyone began suddenly talking at once. The impending headache kept him from understanding at all what they were raving about.  
  
He was at a loss, and he hung his head with the weight of everything.  
  
"Silence!" said Dumbledore, who had the rare gift of commanding attention without a strong voice.  
  
They all complied, lips trembling and eyes wide.  
  
Yuugi took this as a chance to cut in.  
  
"You're all dark wizards, or whatever, in my opinion! Would you consider it 'dark' to cause harm to someone! I--don't understand your philosophies at all!"  
  
His overlarge eyes glittered helplessly with confusion and tears of worry.  
  
"Mr Mutou is ~not~ a dark wizard by the standards that we would understand." The old man sunk lower into his chair, his fingers braced in a steeple shape. "I myself would testify of his innocence."  
  
"You just saw what he did, Dumbledore!"  
  
"You cannot pretend of what destruction he is capable of . . . "  
  
"He nearly ~killed us all--"  
  
Dumbledore halted their protests with a warning hand, looking down.  
  
"I've been on my own for years." Said Yuugi quietly "I don't intend to hurt ~anyone~."  
  
"That is very true. We must consider ~facts~, as to not be blinded by senseless destruction." Agreed the Headmaster. He turned, bearing a firey- blue gaze that took the young man by surprise "My offer still stands, Mr Mutou."  
  
Again, the group began to whisper, as if their opinions would have any effect on his decision. He felt himself yearning for peace, and for quiet; far far away from that strange place with the suspicious people . . .  
  
But there was something nagging in his mind, that for once was not under the jurisdiction of Yami, or some supernatural power. He realized it finally as ~guilt~.  
  
/I can't just leave them on these terms./ he thought to himself, finally faltering with a heave of silent emotion /Ra, that's not it . . . /  
  
//They need our help.//  
  
/I ~have~ to help them./  
  
//They will never succeed without us . . . //  
  
Yuugi looked up.  
  
"I'll stay."  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Rain barraged heavily on his coat, strung up over his head in a makeshift hood. He shivered and rubbed his arms, rubbery from the wetness as he attempted anything to preserve what little warmth he could gather.  
  
Finally spotting a shelter on the side of the messily-paved road, much like a bus stop of some sort, he wobbled precariously over mud and grime to it's protection from the rain. Instantly, he warmed in the semi-enclosed mugginess.  
  
For a long while, he was unexplainably fascinated with something beyond reality, as he seated himself on the bench, his head hanging limply. He was unsure of precisely how long he stayed seated there, only aware of just how much it didn't matter in the first place, and knowing that he was there so long that his head spun as he tried to right his posture again.  
  
The clear dribbles of rainwater were drying on his chin and slightly chapped lips. He wiped his nose absently, dreamily surveying the falling rain as it formed a sparkling shroud of other things--distant things.  
  
A familiar trinket about his neck felt oddly and uncomfortably heavy on the worn chain supporting it. Much like the limbs on his body--he dearly wished to shed them . . . he had been walking for so long . . .  
  
A presence shifted beside him.  
  
"Just . . . who are you?" asked the dark man, naive and simple again.  
  
Ryou raised his head, his dark eyes churning depths of emotion on a pointed and chiseled face. His hair fell into his eyes and face as he stared beyond the rain. It was clearing now, slightly.  
  
"I'm Ryou . . . forsaken, forgotten and one too weak to kill you."  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Avasiah hated this place. She looked about with that permanent disillusionable disdain under her thick eyelashes. They curled away, surrounded by stencil which curled at the tips. It was a permanent glare--a permanent expression among expressionless fools.  
  
The souls standing stiffly in too-straight rows were meant to intimidate her, she supposed. They were meant to stand faithfully still, as an impressive testament of his power . . . though she found them hardly worth any consequence at all.  
  
Without expression, raw souls were simpletons, and she had lived among raw souls much of her life, as it was her birthright to do so, passed to her from her mother.  
  
Those pointed, absurd masks were making them out to be weak-looking, and they were too caught up in the useless sort of reality to understand themselves, and the obvious doom upon them.  
  
Their lord waited at the head of the crowd, eyes closed as if he were asleep, but he was examining them . . . down to the meddling Avery . . . and eventually to herself. She sniffed, raising an eyebrow.  
  
Snake-like eyes shot open.  
  
Crimson, pale, and contorted, he grotesque face watched her directly for a moment, before it's body straightened and bone-like fingers snapped in a conjuring motion.  
  
"Avasiah, come forth. Wormtail, attend me." Voldemort said lazily.  
  
Feeling her eyes narrow at his pitiful misconception of superiority, she brought herself up, deep magenta robes exposing her shoulders, and her hems trimmed in gold, folding elegantly around the heels. She stood conspicuously among the hordes of black-clad, cowering followers, her light of purpose and (as assumed more importantly) ~power~, shining upon them to fade their black.  
  
She no longer bothered with sandals on her feet. Starting forward, her toes brushed the lush, wood-paneled floor boards with care. Avasiah allowed her severely stenciled eyes to close as she walked; bowing her head and feeling her long hair brush over her facial features delicately. Her arms were limp at her sides.  
  
Each empty face turned as she passed, and she noticed Avery's unusual twinkle behind the mask, but she allowed no expression to confirm any of their blatantly deadpan expressions.  
  
Her feet halted. The oddly deep and all-consuming eyes opened smoothly.  
  
The so-called Dark Lord stared down at her upon a luxurious, black velvet throne and through the midst of dark robes entirely to baggy to be taken seriously around his abnormally thin frame--littered with much fuss by the 'Worm' and folds down to the faithful serpent at his heels. Her opinion remained that the picture was more awkward than anything, his thin, slightly hunched frame was consumed entirely.  
  
There was the whimpering man with slightly gray, pasty skin standing next to him tensely as if he were trying to avoid the gaze from his vicious master.  
  
/At least ~his~ name is appropriate./ Avasiah thought dryly /Useless worm . . . /  
  
"Tell me of our splendid triumphs at the wizard prison Azkaban." He demanded in a drawling tone. She was tempted to refrain from gracing him with her words.  
  
/Imbecile. Who does he believe he is, which god bowed before his power-- does he see me as another of his blind followers, of his pathetic and short- sighted little army? ~Imbecile~./  
  
Her lusciously extensive hair, as dark, or perhaps darker than sin, shook as waving rivulets with the consistency of violently disturbed waters. It finally settled over her bronze shoulders without folds, only allowing barest tendrils to whisper forward past her arms. Blinking away annoyance she sighted him with a warning look devoid of much patience, and matched every bit of nastiness as he in her reply.  
  
"As you can see quite well enough on your own, I believe," she gestured sarcastically to the widespread lines behind her "your wishes have been easily fulfilled."  
  
His unnatural face contorted dramatically.  
  
"You shall not--"  
  
/You will not tell me what I may and may not do. I am in the service of the gods./  
  
"Have you found me a disciple?" she interrupted him impatiently.  
  
The red slits narrowed.  
  
"Parkinson!" he shrieked.  
  
A figure began to stumble forward without a mask, but dressed in an identical black uniform as the other drones. Her would-be plain face was spoiled angry and discontent, pudged cheeks nearly swallowing small, pale eyes.  
  
Yet the girl was white with fear for the unknown. Avasiah gazed at her desolately, watching her face slowly fade painfully into a precariously controlled tumble of emotion.  
  
Indignance. Surprise. Wariness. Fear. ~Blind~ fear. The girl trembled.  
  
Avasiah snatched up the girl's round chin in her graceful hand, looking deeply into her eyes. The girl gasped and sobbed--the nails dug deeper into her soft skin.  
  
/Filth . . . a stupid little girl . . . unworthy! This filth could never survive following me!/  
  
"Unworthy." She whispered.  
  
The girl closed her eyes, beyond tears, and willing for the scrutiny to stop.  
  
But her terror and helplessness was no where near comparing to that of the Egyptian woman.  
  
/No./ she could no longer cry or violently attack everything in anger--she was beyond it. She was ~tired~.  
  
. . . And despite her intentions, she ~still~ could not find an heir as Holy Caretaker. Her lip trembled.  
  
/I cannot afford this--this STUPIDITY!/  
  
She could not . . .  
  
With a force beyond measure and power beyond the senses of any individual sharing her presence, the girl suddenly was thrown through the air, crashing into a stone wall and finally collapsing to the floor in a still heap. Avasiah's eyes were the fire of her own anger, burning beyond rationality, burning beyond reality.  
  
She focused her might of will on the Dark Lord entirely, whirling.  
  
"I have done ~everything~ that you have asked of me." Her voice trembled in considerable rage "Yet you have not even fulfilled the ~solitary~ request I have made, in charge of my services."  
  
He stood angrily "I have done all of what we had agreed and more! I have given you riches, I have given you ~power~--"  
  
"Such trivial things mean nothing to me."  
  
Reality shuddered with the tone of her voice.  
  
"I gave you a girl to manipulate and mold to your will, what else matters?" he asked, his voice deadly calm.  
  
"Nothing!" she retorted "Nothing means more to me than an ~heir~, an apprentice."  
  
"Then what are you raving about, you dim-witted woman!" his wand was gripped tightly in his bony hand.  
  
Avasiah lost all control with his impudence; her eyes blinked to pupil-less and entirely violet. Something broke behind them.  
  
She leapt up deftly before Voldemort had scarcely a moment to register the movement--up higher than any witch, wizard or muggle could ever hope to soar. With bitterness seeped in vinegar and absolute ire, Avasiah shot out to his throat with her hand and lifted his body easily under her grip.  
  
She saw beyond the /seemings/, the suppositions, the dreamings and she saw plainly that the so-called 'Dark Lord' was fragile. An old man whose strength had long since faded into the depths of an ever-regretful youth, and waned into not even a shadow of what it once was—he was nothing more than a Shade, sacrificing everything in his false ideal of superiority.  
  
He cowered without realizing it. His soul was plain and open for her to read; there was nothing he could hide from her, not even the most insignificant moment of weakness in his life.  
  
Pain made a noise in his throat. Guilt made him choke.  
  
Voldemort gurgled.  
  
"~Never~ assume me as blind--or a follower of your trivial cult." She whispered "Never."  
  
She dropped his weak body without care.  
  
"I have more important things that I am charged to attend to, than your blind-sighted revolution."  
  
Someone in the vast crowd called to her, perhaps the fool Avery, yet it was unnaturally distant as if suffering an alternate reality, and her gaze lingered on. Voldemort shifted, hissing in pain.  
  
The crimson eyes surveyed her spitefully. /He is not the pharaoh that I serve, nor Anubis who may take my soul all too soon. I have nothing to fear of him, ~male~ that he is . . . or perhaps not even that./  
  
"Perhaps you would find a suitable candidate at the ~school~." He said in mock sweetness, his tone lofty "Once we conquer Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, you can find a naive little girl yourself. A mudblood, for all I care."  
  
"Hogwarts . . . " she tested. It sounded oddly familiar, somehow . . .  
  
He righted himself, retaining again his all-powerful demeanor, much to her disgust.  
  
"Yes," he told her, as one might a small child "~Hogwarts~."  
  
Without a word, she left them all, striding through the lines in a faint huff, briskly as they watched through dark masks and dark expressions underneath. She had publicly humiliated their Lord . . . Avasiah mentally scoffed.  
  
/I have no intention of waiting around for you, if you are so sure that this school will enclose successful results . . . I will gain an apprentice myself./  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
When she fell asleep that night, she dreamed of a faint, smiling face and something about brown hair. An ordinary dream, and the only glimpse she was gifted with of any true importance.  
  
And oddly enough, of a child-Ryou, giggling and bouncing his feminine locks over his ears . . . and she was peaceful.  
  
She woke to Avery's screams downstairs, and Voldemort's eerie, contented laughter.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Ryou stood, his legs wobbling slightly after a few hours of sitting silently and stiffly. He squinted delicately against a sudden glare beyond the sheen of dribbling raindrops, eventually bringing up a hand to shield his dark eyes.  
  
"I think the rain is clearing." He noted quietly, to no one in particular.  
  
His Yami shimmered to sight beside him, donned into rough black robes, folded around his neck. He stared off into the same semi-hopeful reverie as his Aibou--but was dangerously unsure of what to expect.  
  
No one really understood what to expect. Not even the strangely thin and looming man who suddenly stood from the conveniently-placed bench, though he did look quite odd in the plastic bus stop.  
  
Ryou glanced over at his two companions; the unlikely sort, or at least, would have been unlikely--say, a year or two previous. Nothing really seemed unlikely anymore.  
  
"No," said Alucard, his deep voice vibrating in the small shelter. He pointed to the right, and Ryou craned his neck to follow the gaze. "Over the hill, you see? A storm approaches."  
  
"We just got out of a storm." The Hikari soul said wearily.  
  
The vampire fixed him with a stare, concealed with round, yellow-shaded sunglasses perched atop a pointy nose. He sneered elongated and sharp canines.  
  
"A more severe version is nearly upon us."  
  
"Best we make the best time we can, while we can." Said Yami Bakura softly.  
  
Neither of them held any better advice. They started off toward the sun.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
RBMIfan – Woo! I censored myself in my notes ~_^ But that's understandable if you don't want any foul language. The only semi-bad things I'm seeing in the future of this story is violence, and boyxboy love. FAR from explicit or extensive, mind you ^^ Heehee! I hope you'll still read *bites fingernails*  
  
Psychopathic Sixth Grader – Eh, complications ~_^ I've heard that silver bullets kill many things, and make people drunk too . . . *cackles at bad pun* I'm glad you liked it, regardless ^^ Like the longish chapter? *high- fives*  
  
ruth 4 kai – I'm sorry I couldn't update sooner . . . many, many issues o.O  
  
manga-nut – Congrats dearie, shounen-ai it is ^^  
  
onlyHAUNTED – Woo for weirdness and bedlam . . . rah! ^^ This probably makes a little more sense, though there are a few subtleties involved--a lot of stuff you need to read between the lines, just to warn ya. Did this chapter meet your expectations? ^_^  
  
Sakura-chan – Thank you! I'm glad you like it . . . comments like that make me feel all gigglish and happy ^^  
  
Elle-FaTe2x1 - *huggles* Don't worry! Wow. I really did put a lot of Yuugi in this chapter . . . geez. Barely any Ryou at all! *sniffle* I'll have to remedy that next time . . . ~_^ Oh, and I was just wondering . . . how did you come up with your name? ^^ It seems as though it has an interesting story behind it . . . heehee  
  
Windswift – heehee, of ~course~ they have issues--they're some of my favorites! Lol Less mystery than the last chapter, I hope ^^ If not then . . . blah. It'll all come into its own soon, I promise! *huggles*  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
So, uh . . . yeah. Sorry about the lengthy update time--I was filled with much angst and a severe case of the horror that is often referred to as "Writer's Block", so writing was rather difficult. I hope I haven't angered any of you.  
  
I'm really, really exausted right now. School softball is starting up, and I've been practicing every day . . . I'm swinging from varsity to jv, so that's pretty cool, as I'm a freshman . . . and my mother is convinced that I have a D+ in PE. What the f*** is that?! Yeah, I know *sighs*  
  
My teacher pointedly told my class to ignore those grades, but I think my mother is just enjoying being irrational right now. She said that I am limited to an hour a day on the compy, until I 'get my grades up', hence the long pause in which I 'died'. Like I really need to ~study~ for PE . . .  
  
Okay, end rant. *snore*  
  
Reviewsies, please? Please please please? ^^ Ease my aching head . . .  
  
giggle 


	8. Avasiah's Shame

**AN - **Lalalalala, enjoy my pretties.

Oh, and since ff.net went bonkers again, here are some new format changes:

_Thoughts._

_:Yami Thoughts:_

_::Unknown Thoughts::_

Yeah, kinda wierd Ah well (_le sigh_)

* * *

"Are we almost done yet?" Yuugi slumped tragically over the multitude of books strewn in front of him. His face lay on an ancient page explaining the complexities and theories behind some sort of spell to clean your toes . . . and he was quite proud of the fact that he didn't care in the slightest.  
  
His eyelids fluttered closed as a semi-physical presence shuffled up beside him, sighing exasperatedly.  
  
"We actually haven't made any progress yet." Yami intoned for at least the tenth time. They were both weary of fruitless research through endless texts regarding things that they would probably never understand. These westerners were disgustingly concerned in **how** their magic worked, no matter how slight the spell, rather than actually **performing** the useless tricks.  
  
But the vexation of the split soul was more focused on their useless little escapade--and the lack of results for the fourth day of searching alone.  
  
They had spend hours upon hours in the otherwise deserted library of which Hogwarts seemed to boast about so assuredly. Of course, it might have just been the oddly pale, constantly shaking librarian who boldly bragged that they could find _anything_ in the massive collection of books . . . if they looked hard enough.  
  
So far, they had only discovered a single mention of the Millennium Items, in a book entitled "Ancient Magical Myths" by C. McAver. And there was absolutely NOTHING regarding the pharaoh's magic.  
  
_:Come to think of it:,_Yami thought moodily _:nearly everything in that Ra-be-damned text was fictional anyway.:  
_  
"I don't know why we're doing this." Yuugi mumbled into ink-stained parchment "How do we even know that we'll find anything here."  
  
"We don't." Yami responded.  
  
They both sniffed in disdain.  
  
"Oh honestly!" a voice called from somewhere behind a nearby bookcase, and they both jumped in surprise. "Stop complaining! Dumbledore told us to look, so we will . . . "  
  
Yami turned a passive countenance to the frazzled-looking woman who stepped out, trying to balance several thick books under one arm while adjusting her thick glasses at the same time. A few stray tendrils of untidy semi- blonde hair hung down stubbornly across her face, tickling her nose enough that her face was alternating between a stern expression, and scrunching up her nose to shake off her split ends.  
  
She finally dropped all but one book onto the table with a resounding **_smack_**, forcing Yuugi to raise his head and glare at her.  
  
". . . Besides," she placed her free arm on one hip and looked at them sternly "I doubt you--err, two, have anything better to do."  
  
"How about sleep." The Hikari yawned hugely.  
  
"Sleep is overrated."  
  
"Bah." His head once again collapsed onto the table, and he looked to have no intention of raising his head from the book in the near future.  
  
"The ink's going to rub off on your face." She pointed out.  
  
". . . Don't care . . . " he mumbled, absolutely exhausted.  
  
The woman noted his weariness with a suddenly reproachful look. She bit her lip.  
  
"Did you find anything, Professor?" even the ordinarily-deadpan Yami was expressing exhaustion in his smooth tone.  
  
She responded by placing a high-heeled foot upon the surface of a chair, and then heaving the overlarge book guilty of a majority of her attentions onto her poised knee. "I guess we'll see."  
  
Yami Yuugi quietly set himself down on a chair next to Yuugi, aware that his energy would be better wasted in research rather than standing over an extended amount of time. His lips tightened as he surveyed his Hikari, who was genuinely drained. With a sudden jolt of understanding, and a slight blush, he realized that his continued physical presence was probably what was taking up a great deal of his other half's energy.  
  
_Don't disappear._ Yuugi sent to him abruptly. He figured the slight unease in that mind-voice, and knew he could never refuse.  
  
_:Alright.:  
_  
The ever-studious Professor Olive Vector flipped through yellow, age- stained pages and scanned each with swift eyes darting over every word with comprehending precision. After a few minutes of watching her magnified eyes shift and strain to the cramped handwriting over the thick pages, even Yami put his head down.  
  
The windows allowed in a generous portion of the midsummer brightness, and besides making the entire room a bit too hot for ordinary standards, the light drifted lazily over dusty, cloth-covered bookcases with an eerie consistency that gave the impression of something slightly amiss.  
  
It was an uncomfortable place, he shivered involuntarily and glanced back over to their female companion.  
  
Who was already staring at him impatiently, her head cocked to the side.  
  
If Yami had been any more conscious at that moment, he would have jumped out of his chair in surprise.  
  
"Millennium Items . . . hmm?" she drawled knowingly.  
  
His eyebrows furrowed. "We've gone through this already."  
  
She awarded him another sniff and a disgruntled huff for his lack of patience. She wanted to be _sure_ of course. She was the best arithmancy professor Hogwarts had ever had, after being the very best _student_ Hogwarts had ever had--though her record test scores were slowly being bested by the now- seventh-year Hermione Granger. Olive chuckled secretly to herself at the thought of the no-nonsense young woman who would almost surely land a high spot in the Ministry, someday.  
  
"Did you find anything?" he tried again, voiced with increased volume and increased annoyance.  
  
"Of course I did!" she snapped moodily.  
  
Yuugi's head snapped up suddenly from the books, and she noted both sets of overlarge violet eyes gazing at her in sudden awareness with a rush of content at her overall genius. The twin-like apparitions took the ancient book from her hands as one, triumph allowing them to take it easily as she smirked and basked in her personal wisdom.  
  
"I already read it." She clarified loftily.  
  
It didn't take them long after her comment to realize that the entire book was written in archaic and twisted Latin, and that they had no hope of deciphering the tiny writing quite so immediately.  
  
The disgruntled jingle of Yuugi's bulky and bizarre necklace echoed oddly throughout the spacious library. They somehow managed to stare at each other all at the same time for a few moments, before the sorely serious Yami Yuugi broke the silence with another dreadfully logical comment.  
  
"Well?" the tanned 'boy' licked his lips.  
  
She settled for biting her lower lip, contorting her face into a thoughtful expression.  
  
"We-e-e-e-e-e-e-ell, I suppose it would make sense . . . much of the world works in great forms . . . the companions the seconds . . . " she muttered absently under her breath.  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Oh!" she turned her round eyes upon them immediately, flushing a little in the cheeks from her wandering mind "I guess the main thing is . . . the 'coven'." She flipped through a few pages experimentally.  
  
Yuugi's eyes furrowed in a bit of confusion.  
  
"A court, I suppose." She tried, experimentally, to get him to understand "Ehm . . . just a group of people you hold in high regard and trust—before, you see, the Millennium Item holders were the coven. Seven is a magical number, you know."  
  
"A coven then . . . " Yuugi repeated softly.  
  
"Oh yes, I would recommend that aspect as inevitable. It says here that the pharaoh couldn't even complete all of his incantations without his coven for support! Magical support, of course."  
  
_Do you remember?_ he had to ask, it seemed so important.  
  
_:I . . . don't really. Just people with items . . . but not anything special, I assumed. Not as vital as Professor Vector is implying.:_  
  
They sighed as one, emotion flowing freely between the two visible images of one uniform soul. The Yami's image flickered a few times as he sat-- slumped, rather, onto the nearby chair. Yuugi's eyes were drooping dangerously low when Olive discerned their behavior as 'barely conscious', and certainly unable to speak intelligently about such important aspects of their future.  
  
Of her future, too, really. She had to droop a bit in the steady realization that it was unlikely that they could otherwise stop the Dark Lord. She had attempted sleepless nights over candle-light and bleached parchment, reading her complex equations and statistic justifications for their odds . . . and it hadn't looked good.  
  
But then the odd spirit-twins appeared, and all bets were off.  
  
She had to smirk; Voldemort had no idea what they were hiding away in the old castle walls of Hogwarts. No idea.  
  
And it was the only edge they had, as desperate as it may have seemed.  
  
"Look . . . why don't you two go ahead and get some sleep for now while I clean up the library." She said soothingly, moving to steer them gently from the distant library doorway. "I have a lot of cleaning to do--and we can easily set this aside until tomorrow."  
  
The Hikari looked astonished, and as if he were about to protest, but his slowly fading Yami rested a hand on his shoulder to still his earnest reprimand. He caught the words in his throat, slipping out a little half- choked sound.  
  
"Alright." His head hung unsurely.  
  
"Don't worry!" she laughed "Trust me, I should have started on this restoration process a week ago!"  
  
"Why are you cleaning the library?" Yuugi asked curiously, his Yami's semi- there hand still upon his shoulder.  
  
She smiled, a true smile, which was a window into the joys of her work and her home.  
  
"The Hogwarts students are returning in three days! It will be September the first, and the beginning of another _fabulous_ school year."  
  
Olive Vector, stern arithmancist extraordinaire, bounced and giggled like a small child.  
  
It was rather disturbing.  
  
And, if her flashing eyes were any proof of it all, she was quite aware of it and proud of the fact.

* * *

_An odd thing about traveling,_ he noted to himself, _if you focus close enough, the world just seems to appear before you, as if just for you to walk upon._  
  
He stared at his shoes with a blank expression, walking forward with a peculiar look and placing his hands to hold each other behind his back. One step. One step at a time, and he took in the world as it went.  
  
_I wonder what would happen if it no longer appeared?  
_  
The path was a clean-cut blur in all the world he took in. His ponderous nature was betraying him, that he understood, to something that could only be described as a little insane.  
  
_:I've been to the end of the world.:_  
  
"Have you really?" he continued on.  
  
_::There's no such thing as the end of the world.::_ A biting voice assured.  
  
_:You wouldn't know. You haven't been there.:_  
  
_::Precisely.::_  
  
And so the road laid itself before him, like a gently turning wheel, with him too ignorant past the bridge of his nose to notice the cycle.  
  
_:. . . There's always an end to everything . . .:_

* * *

The muffled screams stilled suddenly, she blinked into the darkness. She was startled for a moment; as wide as her eyes were, her vision was still startlingly black, but it was only a moment. It was disturbing how unused to reality she was anymore.  
  
How long had it been . . . fourteen years? Thereabouts certainly. The unpredictability of the world beyond the dreams of the Underworld was still astounding.  
  
Silence enveloped the entirety of the elderly manor, stilling the thoughts of the gently unconscious inside. Others were asleep; able to ignore the distinct sounds of torture through the musty walls, or perhaps soothed by it, drifting away to dreamland without much thought beyond the ordinary. She wondered idly if she could ever be so ignorant of pain and suffering.  
  
_No,_ she admitted to herself, twisting a bit, _the Gods have made me this way; I would never be so cold-hearted. Torture is necessary, but never enjoyable.  
_  
Avasiah still doubted herself, and was ashamed in the enveloping darkness. Deep, calm, safe darkness.  
  
Her thoughts became jumbled after a while, though she still remained wide- awake and doubtful beyond her cool cold appearance. As her eyes were open and glassy, she forgot to blink for an extended while. She was faced toward the wall, laying over the comforter of the magnificent four-poster bed, decked dully in greens and blacks. Although, the colors had faded in reproach from the lack of illumination . . .  
  
Quietly, oh so quietly, and yet noticeable to the widened eyes of a staring woman, the door opened without the barest traces of a creak. The warm light of burned-down torches filtered smoothly through the doorway, and hugely cast shadows answered its call. The shadows of her and the furniture danced delicately as slow footsteps approached.  
  
"You shouldn't have done that." She spoke suddenly. The steps halted in surprise and sudden wariness.  
  
Unshed leather boots creaked in response.  
  
He chuckled.  
  
"I know."  
  
Avery continued inward, and Avasiah could sense the maddening smile upon his face, even if she was not directly facing him. She sensed that swagger despite obvious pain, that knowing smirk despite unawareness.  
  
He was a fool.  
  
"You are a fool." She spoke coldly.  
  
"Yeah, well," she heard him wince "I get that a lot." _From you._ The unspoken thought echoed through both conciousnesses.  
  
"You shouldn't have done that." She repeated.  
  
There was a pause, then a quiet voice, deep with a misunderstood sorrow mingled in the tenor tone.  
  
"I had to."  
  
Avasiah rolled her eyes and made a distinct sound of disgust through her throat. She felt the emptiness next to her flux a bit as the man practically fell into the blankets with a hiss of pain. She felt him struggle to prevent him from gasping any more audible points of weakness, but the tension was stifling.  
  
He didn't have to, she knew. He had _wanted_ to.  
  
Avery loved her, yet she was incapable of such thoughts. She scowled into the pillow, wishing it all to disappear somewhere.  
  
"I need to get my mind of this . . ." he whispered hoarsely, suddenly "Seven cruciatus curses in one night . . .  
  
"Avasiah?"  
  
Her eyes narrowed.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Tell me about your son," he recalled a pale, forgotten face with eyes that were no longer capable of rest. Darted to darkened depths and a malicious glint at times . . . "Ryou."  
  
"Why should I?"  
  
"_Please_."  
  
It wasn't as if she would gain any worthwhile sleep; considering that she couldn't sleep anymore. Guilt still pulled ragingly at her heartstrings, as a thought echoed with singular vitality:  
  
_I could never love him._  
  
She was so so tired, she would disappear soon, and she had yet to find an apprentice. She couldn't return the unselfish love of a selfless man. She failed; she had borne a son, of which she could never rid herself of entirely, despite his uselessness.  
  
Avasiah breathed in deeply.  
  
_There is nothing else to it._  
  
"Ryou was a failure . . . " she began.  
  
"Why do you always say that?"  
  
She rolled her eyes impatiently.  
  
"Because he was a male."  
  
The air was dubious.  
  
"I was meant to have a girl; a girl to continue the ancient line created by my ancestors . . . a girl to apprentice my place effectively and fully . . . "  
  
"Why did you abandon him? Was he a squib or something?" he wanted to understand that peculiar aura around the quiet, pale-haired boy.  
  
She paused, abruptly unable to put her thoughts into words.  
  
"Not in the sense you would understand . . . "  
  
"How then?''  
  
Damn him and his meaningless questions.  
  
"Hush or I will stop." She snarled.  
  
He quieted.  
  
"The boy . . . if he were a 'squib' there would be no problem . . . I stayed with him and his worthless father for five years, simply because of blood relation . . . I tried to think of him as the girl he wasn't . . . but I could not."  
  
She bit her lip.  
  
_Why does it matter?_  
  
"I hated him." She said finally. "He is dangerous. The sort of mindless male I destroy so well."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Rain splattered on the roof above them, and soon a storm rolled in. Several moments passed before she had any sense to explain . . .  
  
"He is deaf to magic." Avasiah breathed. "He is dangerous."  
  
She knew by Avery's impatient sigh that he would never understand how dangerous the boy was.  
  
_Gods forbid him ever to discover what lies dormant._

* * *

**AN - **Sorry about the wait, dearies. I've been in the midst of softball, amoung finals preparations and such . . . though I did get MVP for my high-school team Bah, I know; no excuse.  
  
In a few months I believe I will be a bit more available to write, which is fortunate. I have every honest intention of relaxing fully this break, and what better way than to write my twisted little stories? Mwahahahaha.  
  
Anywho, I'm late for a doctor's appointment as we speak, so toodles for now. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, at least partially. With luck, I'll be bringing the rest of the "crew" next chapter. Be afraid. (rah!)  
  
Please review if you have any suggestions, or would be so very kind as to fuel my ambition. Or kill it.  
  
giggle 


	9. Late Arrivals

SORRY about my laziness - -;;; And misplaced mind.  
  
Review responses for the last chapter are also at the bottom of the page. I'm really sorry . . . but school is over, so I hopefully won't be quite so absent minded in the future   
  
**Song of the Chapter: "Cherry Blossom Girl" Air**

* * *

_"There was a boy . . .  
  
A very strange, enchanted boy.  
  
They say he wandered very far,  
  
--very far--  
  
over land and sea . . .  
  
A little shy, and sad of eye  
  
but very wise, was he.  
  
And then one day,  
  
one magic day, he passed my way.  
  
While we spoke of many things,  
  
fools and kings,  
  
this he said to me:  
  
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn  
  
is just to love . . . and be loved in return'"  
  
- Massive Attack & David Bowie, "Nature Boy"__

* * *

_   
  
After nearly three weeks of hanging about a delightfully old, gothic setting, the airport seemed strangely transparent, plastic, and overly noisy. Voices turned nasal-like in tone from mechanical phenomena, echoing in periodic spurts to turn every soul aware of each and every flight--in each and every language of course.  
  
Yuugi felt his companion fidget at the unfamiliar locale, often darting his sight back to the short boy as if he were a dearly seen life-jacket.  
  
"It's difficult to imagine so many people, acting so comfortable in these places." Yuugi offered randomly, hoping that the other man would at least relax slightly. The tenseness of his aura was rather stifling in the physically-stifling building. Midsummer in a place half made of glass was not particularly comfortable.  
  
The stressed and hurried travelers darting around—hastily biting into sandwiches, sheparding unruly children out of stores, puzzling over the multi-lingual signs for 'restroom'—did not help matters either. The best the pair could attempt was to stay out of their paths.  
  
"Oh yes, I agree wholeheartedly" The dusky, brown-haired man examined an eccentric old lady, muttering obscenities under her breath with a slightly startled expression.  
  
To avoid direct conflict with a distinguishably large suitcase, the Japanese boy had to actually take Lupin's arm with a tight grip to steer him away.  
  
He steered them off to the side, to lines of shabby leather chairs facing a wide window that overlooked the runways. The bold sign proclaiming 'D10' triumphed over them.  
  
Lupin blinked up at it.  
  
"Here we are," Yuugi sighed.  
  
"Should we . . . ?" The older man paused his eyes significantly at the bored-looking lady filing her nails behind a desk.  
  
"No, we're only picking some people up." He was beginning to become mightily peeved at the constant array of reminders that were completely ridiculous. "We're not actually going on a plane and riding to Japan . . . "  
  
The man looked abruptly startled.  
  
"What? You mean people actually ride those things?!" he said gesturing to the sleek white shapes shimmering and bathing dormantly in the noonday sunlight.  
  
Yuugi closed his eyes and counted to ten. This was becoming an extraneously long day.  
  
"Yes," he affirmed through gritted teeth "_we_ do."  
  
They chose a pair of unoccupied seats, further from the rest of the anxious crowd than others may have opted to. Or rather, Yuugi flopped himself down in a place where they couldn't be overheard (in case there was something that needed to be said), and Remus followed obediently.  
  
The man with the faded-brown hair smoothed out imaginary crinkles in his black trousers, and sat down gingerly while his head darted around toward the slightest sights and sounds.  
  
Yuugi noted that his most immediate attention befell upon a child walking backward on a convenient span of moving floor, giving the illusion he was walking, but not really going anywhere. Soon, even the Japanese boy was quite taken with the odd image, simply because there was nothing else to examine.  
  
The boy noticed them staring after a while, and a mischievous look soon fell upon his face. He made an ugly expression with the aid of his hands.  
  
The intercom belonging to their gate crackled on and the voice of the bored secretary rang out around them. Lupin jumped slightly.  
  
"Flight 206, the direct flight from Tokyo, Japan will be arriving shortly. Flight 206, the direct flight from To-ky-o Jap-an will be arriving shortly."

------

Rain splattered messily on the outer edge of the window. The skies were dark and saturated enough with moisture that the electric lighting in the train reflected off the glass in untidy ripples.  
  
The compartment was rather quiet in comparison to years past. He supposed that it might have something to do with the weather, or their meeting at Diagon Alley a week previous, or perhaps their growing age and maturity.  
  
It was still difficult to believe that they were already in their seventh, and final, year of their magical education. He sometimes felt as though he were trapped in a haze of wishful thinking, that he would just wake up in his fourth year dormitory again, with the expectant mindset of many more years of innocence ahead.  
  
And besides, this horrid weather was unfit for the daydreams he sported since first year of his triumphant start to a wonderful final year.  
  
Harry frowned. Dark, dismal and damp--as usual.  
  
"Why does it always seem to rain on the day we arrive to school?" he commented quietly to himself. The proclaimed Boy Who Lived sighed and averted his eyes to the dreary scene of a shadowed landscape, flashing by.  
  
Meanwhile, his friends started up again in one of their usual mini-feuds, regarding mundane topics of everyday occurrence. There was an odd level of comfort in seeing them arguing. Harry hid a smile behind his hand.  
  
"I already told you I wouldn't help you out of this mess." Hermione said haughtily, not bothering to look up from her thick textbook.  
  
Ron brandished his well-worn quill at her, trying to get her eye's attention.  
  
"Hermione, come on--"  
  
"No."  
  
"It's not--"  
  
"You told me you finished it!"  
  
"I FORGOT it, okay Hermione?"  
  
Harry chuckled to himself as his two best friends glared and 'humphed' to themselves. Maybe this year wouldn't be quite as horrible as he figured . . .

------  
  
"Where are they?" Yuugi finally wondered aloud, voicing his apprehensive mindset.  
  
The stream of people steadily flowing into the stuffy gate was thinning. It had been nearly twenty minutes of exiting and bustling into the terminal, and no one had showed that was familiar at all.  
  
He frowned deeply, his eyes furrowing habitually as he crossed his arms over his lean chest. The stylish and perfectly-tailored suit he had been pressured into wearing from his eccentric employers hung without wrinkles and with a certain aura of wicked expediency through that particular pose, and Yuugi was painfully aware of it.  
  
His growing distress mingled desperately with a sense of indignant wariness he was also quite certain showed on his face.  
  
"Are you sure we're at the right gate?" he asked for the millionth time within his own head, and the first time out loud.  
  
"Of course." Lupin had calmed himself to that level of smooth tranquility that he was opt to adopt. "D10."  
  
"How about the time?"  
  
"3:15, flight 206."  
  
Yuugi felt a sudden overwhelming urge to hang his head.  
  
Then he wished Yami was there with him, rather than lazing about back at the castle, so he could hug him and dismiss that horrible weighted feeling in his stomach . . .  
  
He sighed, instead, turning his eyes downcast slightly.  
  
"What do your friends look like?" the brown-haired man asked, in a gentle tone as if he sensed some of Yuugi's unease.  
  
The mention of his old companions in such a direct way succeeded in getting him to smile warmly at the memory, and suddenly, he didn't feel so bad at all. Looking up into the dusty-brown and circled eyes brought him to allow his eyes to glitter.  
  
"Well, first there's Jou . . . "  
  
A well-timed crash and whirl of distant-sounding expletives saved Lupin from Yuugi's overwhelming sentimentality--(that often went out of hand).  
  
Both males blinked to the adjustable hall that connected the belly of the plane to the official gate. A greater variety of odd noises in increasing volume came upon their ears, and they both turned rather quizzical looks to the direction of the voices.  
  
"Just--! Man, **eww**. Not cool."  
  
"You're being a drama queen, I wouldn't--"  
  
"Drool on me?! Well, you did."  
  
Wide violet eyes brightened to a lovely glimmer as a swift smile, not unlike his Yami's, graced his lips slowly.  
  
Lupin shot him another wary glance.  
  
"No I didn't!"  
  
Both voices were becoming more and more heated; to an almost comical degree.  
  
"You know? I think Kaiba really has a point with the whole 'inu-baka' thing . . . "  
  
Another crash, brief scuffle.  
  
"Who the hell are you to talk to me about KAIBA?!"  
  
Two lanky forms, still possessing colt-like awkwardness in their thin limbs, tumbled abruptly out of the doorway as each of the boys grabbed for each-others' throats. They were still spindly with a teenage aura of much to eat, while wasting away all the same, and bent around each other in a most obvious wrestling match, they looked like two insects fighting to the death.  
  
They tumbled and growled at each other in between the shocked forms of a few Japanese ladies, as their husbands and boyfriends steered them away with stoic expressions toward the two scuffling teens. A few words could be made out between the blatant insults.  
  
"--Stupid Inu--"  
  
"--Stupid Kaiba--"  
  
"--Stupid, rat-nest-hair--"  
  
"--Stupid people who wear too much gel!"  
  
Snarling heads of wild sandy blonde and too-controlled brown swiftly continued their little scuffle.  
  
Lupin's eyebrows hung suspended near his hairline, adopting an almost doe- like confusion apparent on his face.  
  
_Are these . . . ?_  
  
The scuffle abruptly halted, the sandy-haired boy lying with his face up and arms over his head on the gaudy airport carpet. A goofy and somehow mischievous smile despite his apparent loss of their juvenile battle.  
  
Yuugi didn't even have a chance to shake his head when he noticed that the boy's smile was most likely directed to the rather compromising position between a rather attractive woman's stiletto-clad legs.  
  
His eyes were gazing up.  
  
"Hmm," he said, with a sort of faraway quality seeping into his voice "cute panda bear panties. Not bad . . . "  
  
The woman looked ready to commit provoked homicide. Onlookers saw the fire behind her mascara framed eyes, her fists curling, knuckles paling--and new that the kid didn't have a chance . . .  
  
. . . But . . .  
  
--SMACK!--  
  
An unidentified yet deliberately swung purse caught the side of the blonde's head with a great deal of indignant moodiness building behind the movement. It was frilly, cute, and pink--but deadly to a man's pride.  
  
The force of the collision sent the boy reeling off to the side, seeing stars.  
  
An exasperated look followed him, as a girl with neat brown hair fingered her purse as an assassin would his rifle. Her expression lightened after a while as she turned toward the still-steaming woman caught in the middle of the situation.  
  
"You'll have to excuse him," the attacker said in a slightly incensed tone "but he's _male_. And therefore, 'knows not what he does'."  
  
She turned back to the boy seeing stars.  
  
"You'll have to excuse him for his stupidity--because he already understands **I** won't." she growled.  
  
The woman managed a wry smile of understanding, and a few scattered chuckles sounded from the on looking crowd. She slung her handbag over her shoulder and walked away, as her high-heels echoed throughout the expanse of dispersing pedestrians.  
  
It was one of those codes of the female species in the world that allowed the woman not to be worried, and not look back.  
  
The brown-haired girl was less-than-pleased when her two traveling companions mustered up the courage to glare back at her. They both started talking at once, scrambling up to her on all fours, but none of their words could be discernable from the random babbling.  
  
"What the hell, Anzu . . . "  
  
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!" she bellowed, cutting off their weak excuses quite completely. They blinked up at her, slowly shifting away as slowly and as smoothly as possible, but she grabbed an ear of both boys and hoisted them up to their feet.  
  
_Hell hath no fury . . ._ both Yuugi and Lupin thought to themselves, as they wisely stood away from the scene.  
  
"Cant you two go more than ten minutes without being completely--immature-- fighting like that--or, or--"  
  
"You missed 'utterly charming'!" spoke up the brown-haired boy, with a nervous laugh.  
  
"--**_complete perverts_**!" she finished angrily.  
  
They both cried out as she tore her hands away from their ears as if she were intending to tear them off.  
  
When her eyes narrowed into dangerously glittering slits and her hands were curling into positions reminiscent of the woman who had left moments before, Yuugi knew things were going to get ugly if he didn't intervene. Usually, she would slap them angrily and that would be the end of it, but he noticed there was a little more going on behind that furious expression.  
  
She was close to a breaking point, he realized suddenly.  
  
"Anzu?" he spoke up hesitantly.  
  
She turned immediately to her name, and the familiar voice she had been anticipating for weeks. Her eyes were closed, but she knew she faced him, knew she faced that voice that calmed her dreams and always succeeded in calming her senses.  
  
Bright azure eyes opened slowly, glowing oddly under dark lashes.  
  
They blinked, as a slow smile played on the girl's lips.  
  
"Yuugi?"  
  
He gave her a reassuring look, that familiar friendly look that had charmed so many into happiness . . .  
  
And she melted.  
  
"_Yuugi_."  
  
She captured him into her arms, dimly aware of how she hadn't hugged him for years, and how he had grown so much taller than she last remembered. He even smelled older--a satisfying pertinent scent of cologne--it was all overwhelming to have him there again.  
  
_You didn't tell us where you had gone,_ she thought _we had thought we had lost you . . ._   
  
He held her tighter as if sensing her distress; and he had. Ever so gently, he wiped off the tears draining down her face before anyone else but the two of them could witness the brief interlude of weakness.  
  
_What's happened to you, Anzu?_  
  
However, before the moment between them had a chance to continue, two overgrown imps collided with the two of them, yelling and laughing.  
  
"Yuugi! Hey man, what's up!"  
  
Jou's drawl brought a smile to his face.  
  
_ . . . We're back._

_------_  
  
"My goodness!" Ron posed dramatically as the fourth (at least) younger student bowled into him with vigor, but the deepest apologies. "_Kids_ these days!"  
  
Harry had to laugh at his best friend's obvious over exaggeration regarding the immaturity of the younger students. Finding it all the more amusing, because Ron had accidentally knocked into people with adolescent gracelessness, numerous times when they were younger.  
  
Ron mock stumbled into the Great Hall, his brand new robes (for once) flailing about his tall frame with incredible polish. Harry walked a few feet behind his staggers, laughing gaily without holding back, occasionally throwing back his head in humor at the more hilarious stunts. One particular occasion, the Weasley barged right into a fourth year Hufflepuff conversation as if he were drunk, catching 'incidentally' onto the waist of a particularly pretty witch. They both fell, and as Ron pretended to lay motionless, the poor girl was horrified that she had hurt him.  
  
Hermione sighed next to him, her arms crossed and glare magnificent.  
  
Whilst the girl was rambling and shaking him in an attempt to bring him back into consciousness, his head lolled to the side . . . A perfect opportunity for him to slyly wink at Harry while the fourth-years talked tensely and frightened.  
  
Harry grinned back.  
  
Unfortunately for their fun, however, Hermione also noted the exchange with her hawk-like gaze, which narrowed drastically. Without bothering for her ordinary excuses and polite words, she barged into the squealing fray with her sleeves rolled up and murder apparent in her expression.  
  
She immediately clutched onto her flirting friend's shoulder with a gruffness that Harry hadn't supposed she possessed, and drew him up roughly as he cried out in pain. The girl who he had come so close to messing with shrieked and flew back into a pile of black robes, as she noticed he had been awake and anticipating the entire time.  
  
"OW! Hermione! What was that for?!"  
  
Her lips pursed, as she continued to drag him over to the Gryffindor table despite his numerous protests.  
  
"I'm getting you away from there before you do something most regrettable and completely **_stupid_**." She hissed snidely, dumping him unceremoniously onto their usual bench.  
  
Ron made only one resonating yelp of pain which momentarily halted surrounding conversations of the returning students. Under his breath, however, he had one-hundred-and-one things to mention that would have made any one of his professors blush.  
  
Harry, resignedly, avoided any unwanted attention by the two of them in matching moods of weighty annoyance by quietly sitting to an unoccupied seat on the other side of the table. He avoided their pouts and glares (familiar enough, after over six years) and chose with a wary avoidance to examine his welcome surroundings instead.  
  
It was slightly startling to discover that his entrance into the Great Hall wasn't nearly as awe-inspiring as he swore in years past; he didn't think that he would ever get over the sight. And yet he hardly noticed it. The hall was familiar anymore, almost ordinary he thought with his eyes slightly furrowed.  
  
That wasn't the only thing that was rather anticlimactic. In fact, everything seemed smaller, and more average, including the paintings and once-grand staircases shifting slowly above them as they walked through the main entrance hall. Even the people were nothing spectacular. Now, as he glanced through the hall, in between tables and uncomfortable-looking, black-clad students, everyone seemed a little misplaced and slightly uncomfortable.  
  
His eyes softened--that was the feeling he had recalled. That tossing and turning sensation stirring deep in his stomach which allowed even growing youths to temporarily forget their ravenous hungers.  
  
He offered a few well-placed smiles of reassurance to faces pale even from the shadows cast by orange-hued candles as they danced along the lines of nose, of mouth, of eyes.  
  
A few jolted to shaky smiles in return, one or two straightened up with renewed assurance . . .  
  
. . . None to few whispered to their peers and pointed at his scar with the sort of awe worthy only of a god.  
  
He sighed, swiveling in his seat and turning back to face his friends. Somehow, he doubted if he would _ever_ get used to that sort of recognition.  
  
He missed being normal.  
  
/Will I ever be able to walk down Diagon Alley without being seen as a hero?/  
  
"Hello-o-o-o-o Harry!"  
  
"Lovely train ride, eh?"  
  
Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnagan jumped as a pair to the right side of the sullen teen, slapping him on the back with force enough to knock the wind out of his lungs, and the temperament to laugh as he coughed into his empty gold plate. Once he got his breath under control, he bestowed the both of them a rather strained smile.  
  
"Not precisely . . . _lovely_."  
  
Seamus laughed again, his hazel eyes bright under a stylishly long fringe acting as bangs.  
  
"Aw, come on!" he pushed aside a few extravagant candlesticks before speaking again—this time with his gigantic hand-gestures that made a few of the younger students wince away "Ya've gotta be used to this rubbish by now?"  
  
"The rain?" Harry asked.  
  
"I doubt anyone could get used to this weather," Dean broke in, gesturing over his shoulder to the reflective ceiling and the thickly falling phantom raindrops disappearing about five feet above their heads.  
  
"Meh," Seamus stuck his tongue out at the both of them.  
  
Harry turned forward, eyes not seeing but smiling faintly to himself.  
  
Hermione's bushy brown head caught his view, as she watched him with a matching expression--though her mouth was quirked into a characteristically Hermione half-smile and clever twist of her large brown eyes. They stared at each other for a moment.  
  
Neither of them could believe it.  
  
"It's difficult to actually realize, that--"  
  
"Yes," Hermione said softly, her eyes closing gently to savor the moment "I can't believe we're finally here."  
  
A sudden hush spread over the hall, and the two friends turned to the source of the anti-fuss.  
  
The Headmaster stood with that peculiar beam as his eyes cast over the faces of his students. His half-moon glasses winked in the candlelight at alternating intervals, matching with his antique-styled cream robes, sewn with inlaid gold thread. He placed his hair over his shoulders as it was held in place by a violet wizard-hat that also served in hiding his retreated hairline.  
  
He held his hands fondly in front of him, looking around even after the hush developed into a comfortable silence.  
  
Without bothering words, he held out his hand toward the group of nervous students (Harry refused to believed that he was actually that small as a first year), standing off to the side. They fidgeted horribly.  
  
Professor McGonnagall uncovered the shabby hat they knew so well, and it lay on a stool for everyone to see. Without any further prompting, the charmed Sorting Hat broke out in an overly loud song depicting values between the various houses.  
  
Harry wasn't listening particularly. An odd feeling was warming his stomach again.  
  
_I can't believe we've made it this far._

_------  
_  
Hermione smiled in all the right places for the sorting song, but inwardly groaning at its bad rhymes and rather cliché wording from stanza to stanza.  
  
There were no terse warnings in it's words this year, from what she could tell, just lines upon lines of innocent outlines for the traditional house rivalries. She pursed her lips for a moment, pondering how illogical the hat really was; here it was, assuming rivalries between the houses, when it was the same hat who warned them to stay together in light of recent events!  
  
_Stupid, senile old hat._ she thought to herself.  
  
The song succeeded in lightening up a majority of the first years—they managed to remember to clap along with the rest of the school as Professor McGonnagall surveyed the school as a whole, neatly unraveling an oversized scroll. She adjusted her glasses primly, and cleared her throat, warning them of the beginning.  
  
"Adale, Felicity . . . "  
  
A pale girl with dark, too-long bangs stumbled forward. She was the sort that always looked just a tad bit moody, with a constant and probably unintentional scowl sealing her featureless face. Without hesitation, she allowed the large hat to flop over to the bridge of her nose, patches and stains standing out peculiarly on her head.  
  
"RAVENCLAW!!!" the hat shrieked, and said house erupted in triumphant cheers as the first student of the year was initiated into the house. Hermione, among a few others, opted to clap politely at the suddenly warming smile that spread across the girl's face.  
  
With a fond smile, she looked over the rest of the first years for the umpteenth time, looking upon each face with a common thought in her head.  
  
_They're so cute.  
_  
A wave of maternal fondness went out to them from her.  
  
The evening was proceeding just as she had imagined to that point. Nothing out of the ordinary as she knew it (a talking hat was indeed ordinary to her anymore), and they were already proceeding into the "Darling, Stephanie"s and "Donohue, Damon"s as the night was still young.  
  
It was pleasant enough, she supposed, up until _that _particular moment.  
  
She couldn't remember the precise instant when she noticed something out of the ordinary. It was just a haze of delirious suddenness and a sudden foreboding.  
  
A chill swept swiftly swept through the hall.  
  
It was unmistakably a draft from outside the castle, and everyone in the hall, including the startled professors craned their heads to the cause of the commotion. There was a deeply toned creak of the ancient front doors, and the unmistakable sound of them slowly pushed shut. The deep **boom** caused what candles were left burning from the wind, to flicker precariously over drips of hot wax.  
  
Hermione shrunk slightly when she realized how dark it was. Ron was gripping his seat tightly beside her, his face pale but wide and unreadable. Harry, on the other side of her, had his eyebrows furrowed, but his eyes were hidden under his untidy mop of hair.  
  
Whispers hissed, shushes tried to override them.  
  
A clicking sound approached them from outside the hall, and almost immediately, the entire hall fell silent again. The sound of clicking heels along polished marble came, lazy and drawn out, pausing slightly before finally entering the doors.  
  
Hermione stared.  
  
It was a man--one she had never seen before.  
  
Hermione blinked in surprise.  
  
Well, she assumed he was a man. Really, he was quite feminine in his facial features. With large, almond shaped lilac-shade eyes, a pointy nose and otherwise angular features, she knew he must be the envy of any woman he had ever met.  
  
An ironic smirk graced his face as he stared forward.  
  
His waist and chest were thin, very thin, almost apparently unhealthily so. He wore a skin-tight black top that accentuated his slender form and tanned arms that were visible under his long black coat. Hermione recognized his style as vaguely muggle, but certainly nothing ordinary.  
  
If she was to express her opinion on the man at first glance, she would have said in a haze of her once-ignorant muggle lifestyle that he looked like a magical being. The candles illuminating his tanned, _beautiful_, face made the feeling all the more profound.  
  
Suddenly realizing that he seemed almost oddly Arabian, she suddenly felt as though things didn't add up. His hair was a bold shade of bright blonde, layered down past his shoulders--it reminded her slightly of Ron's brother Bill's hair. The contrast of blonde over sun-darkened cheeks and forehead was brilliant.  
  
Hermione realized abruptly that she was staring. She averted her eyes in embarrassment as the man noticed her and quirked an eyebrow with that same ironic smirk.  
  
The false smile seemed to hold more venom than Malfoy had ever been capable of; she shifted in her seat, feeling slightly ashamed.  
  
His tongue darted sensuously over his white teeth, and his gaze narrowed to the now-standing Headmaster.  
  
"Oh my, I suppose I've arrived a bit late, then?" the mysterious character intoned in witty sarcasm. "Or perhaps . . . a bit early?"  
  
A few of the professors offered confused looks to each other; they whispered in hisses behind their hands and gave worried looks to their superior.  
  
"Am I even in the right place?" that smooth, cold tone was laced with faint annoyance at the lengthened pause.  
  
Dumbledore snapped out of his ponderous trance and immediately replied:  
  
"Ishtar. Malik Ishtar, I presume?"  
  
The blonde man smiled mockingly.  
  
"Why yes, you are correct in assuming so." He gave a low bow, but it held none of the respect it should have.  
  
The headmaster watched him for a moment.  
  
"I had also assumed that a Miss Isis Ishtar would be joining us as well . . . ?"  
  
"Oh, you're not _quite_ as safe in assuming that." He gestured lazily behind him. "My sister's on her honeymoon . . . she won't be here for another couple of days."  
  
His accent was peculiar, and not entirely European despite his vibrantly blonde mane of hair. Hermione struggled to put a name on it, noting with disappointment that the particular stressing of consonants was unfamiliar and quite baffling to her memory.  
  
"However," he gave a similar lazy gesture with his hand to the onlooking crowd. Gold rings and bracelets glimmered with every movement "I'm becoming quite embarrassed up in front of everyone at the moment. Perhaps we may talk another time?"  
  
"Yes, yes of course."  
  
The irritable caretaker Argus Filch stepped forward to escort the man away from the Great Hall before he could protest. He glared slightly as the older and obviously unkempt man took hold of his elbow to steer him away, and pulled his arm from the man's hold.  
  
After he turned around, Malik Ishtar gave the Headmaster a look over his shoulder.

Or more specifically, a man sitting next to the headmaster, who's odd hairstyle Hermione had suprisingly overlooked before. She didn't know how she could have done it . . . but before she could think any further about the odd man with the incredible violet eyes and deep scowl across his features, the blonde man spoke.  
  
"Tell you're pretty litttle Hikari I've arrived."  
  
When he finally walked completely out of the Great Hall, tension seemed to lift from the crowd like a lint-made blanket in the wind. Conversations turned a bit more distracted and wary.  
  
Predictably, Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other with a look that promised each other answers.

------  
  
Malik stared out the window, assured masks dropped.  
  
He was shown to a luxurious room with a cozy four-poster bed in deep red and cream shades. The entire place screamed 'English', with it's western style mahogany bedposts, dressers, and desk, all matching.  
  
But with the candles out, and the blue hue of full moonlight shedding it's eirie light over the room, it was nearly comforting.  
  
Sighing and allowing his eyes to drop, he situated himself near the window sill. Millions of prayers echoed in the voice of his late father, through his head and on the tip of his toungue. But a particular sorrow overtook him.  
  
His voice was soft in the evening air.  
  
"May Ra rise to fit the skies, may Ra set himself to calm our hearts for the evening. May the world exist in your good favor. You know I am a faithful servant . . . but I ask of only one thing." His eyes shone glossy and vulnerable; a rare occurrence for the likes of Malik the Trickster, Malik the Executioner, Malik the Dark Puppetmaster.  
  
"Please return Ryou Bakura to us . . . to me."  
  
He gritted his teeth to the darkness, feeling a sudden surge of anger.  
  
"I know he's alive, we are connected in a way that even I cannot understand- -I know he is close, I know he is wandering and confused and hopeless . . . "  
  
In a deeply wrung silence, the stillness was incomprehensible. The scarcity of silver moonlight, filtered haphazardly through white silk curtains illuminated his face to the shadows and lost figures wandering with lonesome hovering around the darkest places. Somehow, seeing their presence through OtherSight built to perfection behind the stone cloister walls of his childhood, caused his heart to feel all the more lonesome.  
  
". . . I know . . . that I don't really know him, but . . . "  
  
A fleeting thought crept up upon him, and left with a single tear glittering sweetly down his smooth cheek.  
  
_Tell me why it can't be true . . . _  
  
He closed his eyes gently.

------  
  
Avery yawned, quite opposed to opening his eyes at that moment in his haze of grogginess. He had walked into Avasiah's suite in his disgruntled morning mood, blindly walking as he rubbed his eyes.  
  
It was odd, but he had supposed before that getting rid of sleep would also get rid of his insufferable morning moods. But that would be a miracle far to good to come true.  
  
His eyes opened blearily.  
  
Avasiah stared, her eyes half-closed--not in sleepiness, but in a slow, constant anger. She was dressed to go out.  
  
He looked her up and down, rather startled at what she was wearing. It was nothing like her lose-fitting robes and otherwise plain clothing that she usually harbored under his stare.  
  
/My . . . God./  
  
She stood watching him with that familiar distrustful glare, her thin torso form shimmering in the faint torchlight with a deep emerald sheen, and the shimmer branched and expanded at her waist, descending descending descending to a pool of glimmer that hid her toes. Enumerable sheer scarves twisted and turned over her eyes, over her face, over her neck and threaded through her fingers. Simple gold rings were entrusted to each finger, at least three to each, and bells hung mischievously at each pool, at the end of each sheer shawl.  
  
Her curvy, dark, stenciled eyes narrowed to the sight of his waking form. They were dull and still, they chose not to soften at his confusion--not that they ever would have. Yet it seemed as though Avasiah held something in her mind a little more protected than she normally would.  
  
"What . . . ?"  
  
"I'm going to the school." Her tone was pure venom, no-nonsense. There was no bargaining with her in this mood "I will find my apprentice without the useless aid of those who only hinder me. Today . . . soon."  
  
She turned and stalked out the open doorway to hide her expression.  
  
It was a magnificent twist of feather-light fabric, waving to him hesitantly though their mistress quite pointedly chose otherwise. Bells jittered behind her. Light seemed to frame and dance through her.  
  
She was something deadly, something beautiful, something he had never realized until that moment. He swallowed and stared after her, questioning himself.  
  
_I do not understand you, my lady._ he vowed silently _But I will serve you 'till the end of my days, whether or not my demise will come prematurely because of it.  
_  
Avery knew the vow would stick forever.

* * *

**Elle-FaTe2x1** – Aww, you know our Ryou much too well (_huggles Elle)_ I luffles your name for some reason! Maybe it's because what you say always makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, go duoxheero! Oh, and yes . . . Avasiah is Ryou's crazy mother.  
  
**Sakura-chan** -_ (huggles)_ You're a dear =)  
  
**onlyHAUNTED** – YAAY, cookie! Yeshyesh, Alucard is definitely an odd character—a bit disturbed in the head if you know what I mean o.O I was thinking more along the lines of that Alucard was immortal, and therefore so weary of living that he thought he found someone (a mass murderer) strong enough to kill him. Heehee, but to the world, it's up in arms. And no one got hurt, really, just . . . sorta inslaved . . . o.O  
  
**manga nut** – LOL, me too. Bakura's just a little confused sometimes, that's all . . . woohoo! Shounen-ai it is!  
  
**ruth 4 kai** – Heehee, thank you! I'll try to make smooth updates the best I can.  
  
**Psychopathic Sixth Grader** – I really dunno anymore o.o In some texts, silver is lethal to vampys and wareys, and iron is lethal to elves . . . but I dunno. It DOES make things a bit more dramatic though, doesn't it? Heehee ;) Psycho . . . (_glomps)  
_  
**RBMIfan** – You have no idea of the ego boost you just gave me . . . thank you, so-o-o-o much! I'll certainly keep the foul language at a minimum, and hopefully, others will be thankful as well. I just have to warn you that it might get a little violent, but that's it. I'm so so so honored that you think so highly of my fic I hope you keep reading! (_huggles) . . . (uber huggles)_  
  
Professional writing? Heehee, I hope so =) I think that maybe when I'm just out of college and not making any money at all, but bored out of my wits, I might take a shot at writing a book . . . but who knows! That would be so incredibly cool though. Heehee, there are a variety of Alucard characters around the gaming/anime scene, and this one is probably the most similar to the Hellsing one, because that's the one that I know the best. Although, he's OOC enough to be like an OC, so I dunno. Malik, shaken, not stirred, right here for you, my dear   
  
**Windswift** – Of course!!! That, and anime characters have a way with looking quite gorgeous in black leather ;) lol Yaay! I'm glad it's making more sense. At least I haven't bored too many people away with my crazy no-sense beginnings   
  
**C.M. Aeris Queen of Insanity** – I suppose I'll take that as a compliment =) I do hope you understand sorta sometime soon, though. If you have any questions, e-mail me with specified questions and I'll see what I can do without revealing the better part of the plot.  
  
**crystal-chan** – Heehee! Yesh for angsty writers! I'll certainly e-mail you when you'd like! Oh yes yes yes, and she's going to get a whole lot more evil in the future . . . (_cackles)_  
  
**authoraisarete** – 'Tis a lovely song. I wish I listened to more Creed to know what it sounds like ; ; Soon soon soon, I will go as fast as I can for the next chappie! (_salutes)_  
  
**Tramontana Keeper** – Heehee, thanks! I get crazy ideas for stories all the time . . . Yes, the shounen-ai will make it all the more twisted, and Avasiah all the more crazy—uh oh, I've said too much! Oh! Hmm, in the states, in high-school, there are more than one sports team in each sport, so they divide people according to status in grade, and skill. Varsity is always the best team in that sport, for that school, JV is under it (junior varsity), and then there are various C-squad or freshman teams under that . . . It's freakish stuff.  
  
**ds** – I'm glad you enjoy it! I'm also glad the suspense is working okay . . . I'm horrid at it, mostly ;;; Hope you enjoyed this chapter just as much as the others. Oh, and just tell me if you'd like to be on the "Misery Mailing List" ;) I'll send you notices for new chapters if you'd like. If you're bored, of course. lol  
  
**wolf fullmoon** – I'll try I'll try to read your stuff, but I've had next to no time to review lately ; ; But you'll probably find me around there sometime =) Thank you!  
  
**Alowl** - (_blinks)_ Wow. WOW!!! (_uber huggles)_ You get it you get it! Everyone else was confused, but you get most of the stuff! WOO! Pockey for Alowl! You even got that I borrowed him from Hellsing. YAAY! What you're saying is quite close to what I'm planning, but there are a few little twists in between. Heehee, besides, it would be no fun if you knew all the answers _(winks)_ I don't mind the suggestions! I'm honored that you thought so thoroughly of my idea. Tell me if you need a beta reader or something, you're a very thoughtful person!  
  
**YamiJester** – Certainly! Thank you as well. Hopefully, this is soon enough. Heehee!  
  
**Kina-chan** – Well, you won't have to wait too long . . . Ryou should be coming very shortly--within the next two chapters I'm planning. Thank you very much for the compliment!

------  
  
Gah, my head is spinning. Extra uber-update for all of you who have been patient despite my overall stupidity.  
  
Updates are going to get a little harder to come by, since I have a job now, but it won't be anything like school was. I'm hooked on this story though . . . heehee.  
  
If you like this one, I've got two other HP fics started that you might enjoy. "Darkness Hung the Moon" has a much better chance of me continuing, but who knows. Check it out if you're bored, and I'm in desperate need of feedback.  
  
Oh yes! I have a LiveJournal now! See my author's page for more details   
  
Erm, have nothing spectacular to say . . . only . . . that you MUST listen to Goldfrapp!!! One of my now fav bands, they're WONDERFUL musicians and she has a voice to die for   
  
Anywho, have a splendid day! And please review =) It really does make the updates go faster . . .  
  
giggleplex


	10. Ignore the Smoke and Smile

_AN_ - Gah, damn the business. No excuses today . . . but thank you so much. I've received so much stuff to feed my ego with, I'm positively glowing.

Ah yes, and if any of you like industrial music, and you haven't heard of the band 'orgy', then you're living in a hole, or you are much to immersed in popular ickiness - -;;

Anywho, onward!

**Song of the Chapter: "Saving Faces" Orgy**

* * *

_"There was a boy . . .  
  
A very strange, enchanted boy.  
  
They say he wandered very far,  
  
--very far--  
  
over land and sea . . .  
  
A little shy, and sad of eye  
  
but very wise, was he.  
  
And then one day,  
  
one magic day, he passed my way.  
  
While we spoke of many things,  
  
fools and kings,  
  
this he said to me:  
  
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn  
  
is just to love . . . and be loved in return'"  
  
- Massive Attack & David Bowie, "Nature Boy"_

* * *

"Wow . . . it's lovely!"

"Huh? What the hell are you talkin' about Anzu?"

"You always had creepy tastes."

The boys stared pointedly.

". . . What's that supposed to mean?!" Yuugi's voice squeaked up abruptly, noticing the pause.

"I don't see what's so creepy about it." The single girl huffed.

"Uhh . . . it's old . . . "

"Geez, that old shack doesn't even look like it has running water!"

Their laughing and good-natured teasing earned them a scowling glare from the single female among their group. She crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow at their increased rate of snickers.

A man they had hardly met despite three hours of traveling came up by the frustrated girl, and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry." He said, with a nervous smile "I can see it too. I'm surprised you can . . . "

"Oh thank the gods." She sighed after a moment "I thought I was going crazy. It IS a lovely castle though."

"Yes . . . yes it is."

-----

"How cool is this?!"

"**Awesome**!"

Two gangling figures pranced, without realizing it, around a scarcely-lit garden—one of Hogwarts' finest. Preferring the garden paths as their approach up to the castle (as Jou had come across a nasty incident involving ponds, leeches, and insufferable rich CEOs the year prior, and had been horrified of still water ever since), the odd group had been hiking from the quaint little village of Hogsmeade for the previous half-hour or so.

However, they were by no means suffering the distance. Unbounded and endless energy from being couped up in various compartments for a majority of their past 24 hours left Anzu, Jou, and Honda especially anxious for a little movement.

Professor Lupin—that was all that any of them knew him as—had opened the barrier without much mishap. An owl had swooped down over them, dropping a sealed parchment envelope in the older man's hands, which simply read "At Hogwarts' Front Gates". The transformation had been nearly instantaneous--an incredible shuddering and smoothing of the semi-unusual landscape--into something that only two of them had seen before.

"Woah." Jou's face was illuminated in an eerie green light, staring at the faintly glowing, minute form of a rather pretty girl decked in green. She giggled and fluttered her wings prettily as the glow intensified slightly, as if it were her way of blushing under the handsome boy's close scrutiny.

"Heya." He said suavely.

"She's a garden fairy." Lupin spoke up as Yuugi, Anzu, and himself walked up in anticipation to whatever foolish performances he would participate at that moment. The older man offered a faint smile as the little winged creature huffed in a squeak and stuck her tongue out rudely. "She can't talk back."

Her high-pitched squeaking became louder in protest.

"Well," he offered, looking a bit wary for all of her rising violent tendencies "not in a way we would really understand."

"Eh."

Jou wasn't really listening to the logical explanation. He was slowly backing away as the fairy tossed her head and screamed her cute (but increasingly irritating) little screams as her hair became wildly tangled and face hidden. She flew off in a rage, to join a few other multicolored lights mulling about the canopy of a nearby tree.

"Hey, are you guys coming or what?" Honda's voice echoed from the top of the hill above them.

Glancing at each other, Yuugi and Anzu shared a momentary look of understanding and sighed simultaneously before dragging themselves up the grassy hill with overlarge steps.

Honda waited with his arms crossed until they came closer, then kept the pace along side his companions as they neared the castle.

"It seems so much larger as we get closer." Jou spoke up in awe.

"It'll seem even larger once you get inside of it." Yuugi promised.

As they approached the sunset-crowned building, scattered remains of the student body came into view as little clusters of dully reflecting black robes. They talked, they smiled, they worked on homework. Just like any other high-school.

"Sorta like Domino, isn't it?" Jou noted with a pinch of awe to his voice.

Anzu raised her finely-plucked eyebrows, peering hidden glances to the students around her as they spotted quizzical stares toward the groups slightly outlandish appearances. "I . . . guess."

"Here we are." Lupin's voice came unexpectedly, with the air of presentation.

His thin figure clad in faded green looked even slighter in light of the massive, mahogany doorframe that had been carefully carved sometime long ago. Even Jou was humbled, for all his height, below the entrance to the ancient elegance that was the castle.

The proceeded inside silently.

-----

Even though they stung, even though it seemed out of place, it was the only expression he could grasp in all of his irresistible emptiness.

His eyes threatened to spill over—he tried not to move his face from it's position, wary of the threat.

"It's a silly expression."

"A useless perception."

Alucard and his Yami, always the wariest voices of logic and reason in his life. He turned to them--

Still smiling.

There they were, stopped for no apparent reason on a rocky slope overlooking a dampened green field which was slightly overgrown. A relatively pretty picture, as the moisture and mist faded the horizon of trees in layers of gray. Shades of it everywhere, everywhere.

The Yami shifted, setting a foot on a naturally-created step on the hill. He was imposing, with that long dark coat dancing in the stray tendrils of wind that swirled about the trio of mismatched fugitives.

Ryou's teeth were still uncovered, glinting and glittering through the mist gathered around the foot of the hill. His cheeks were cramping, giving him the impression that a knife was twisting through his jaw. He continued to smile, aware that it would hurt so much more if he halted the gesture.

"Hikari?"

"What is it?" his voice still sounded hoarse—he was still unused to using it without screaming or straining. A deep revulsion in the pit of his stomach crept up every time he spoke, wondering if he would always remain this way.

He turned back to face his Yami, as his cheeks flushed to compensate the wind that no longer thrashed against his face from this direction. Mirror-like eyes were slipping into that familiar brooding gesture.

"What is it?" he repeated.

"Have you always wondered . . . why is it that you are immune to the Shadow Realm? Even as a Hikari."

The unruly, near-dreadlocked head turned away thoughtfully. "Even the Pharoh's Hikari was useless in the Shadowy depths."

Ryou cocked his head to the side with raised eyebrows.

"Isn't that thought a bit . . . tardy?" he asked, along with a slightly dry tone.

Bakura chuckled without humor. His head was still turned away, surveying the layers of mist cascading over the deep emerald hills on the horizon.

"If you hadn't noticed already, we have not had a great deal of time to think such thoughts in these past few years."

"No . . . I suppose not." Ryou returned quietly, examining the toe of his leather shoe. It was showing it's signs of wear as scratchy scuffs had been accumulated over the length of their journey until that point. So many, in fact, that it just looked like one large gray spot between the raindrops and his toe.

Alucard, who had been generally ignorable, suddenly jumped up to the top of the mound of weather-worn rocks the size of cattle heads. The enigmatic something-beyond-a-vampire managed to jump each step with an eerie allowing of the air to wave through his blood-shade cloak like a torn flag.

The two halves of the pondering soul looked up in astonishment. They could spot his shining, yet matted ebony hair spray about his shoulders as he visibly fingered it with leather-bound spindly hands.

"We're nearly there."

Yami Bakura nodded promptly.

"Quite close now."

"Where are we going?"

The Yami jumped up to the side of their mismatched companion without answering his hikari's question. Worried slightly about being left behind, Ryou stumbled up to their side . . . his question still lingering in the moist breeze.

-----

The group moved quickly, lead by a stern-looking woman whose rapid pace had been inlaid with a certain sense of slight anxiety. Their feet stuttered along the polished marble steps noisily as they heaved their own travel-worn bodies and minds up the steps.

Lupin stayed behind with a thoughtful expression marring his drained face. Yuugi's eyebrows furrowed as he dropped back past Anzu to keep steps along side the older man.

"What is this?" he asked seriously.

"I'm not really sure." The once-professor looked around as if an answer would pop out of one of the moving portraits "It's not like the Headmaster to call a meeting so abruptly without good reason . . . or emergency."

Yuugi swallowed, suddenly sensing dread in his own face.

"So, you have no idea what this could be about?"

"No, I don't." his mouth set in a strained line "Minerva would have told us what this was about if she had deemed it safe to mention outside of the Headmaster's office. So I'm sure we'll find out soon enough."

This explanation did nothing to aid Yuugi's growing nerves, however.

_Yami?_ he questioned openly. He nearly slapped himself for not thinking of asking him sooner.

The Hikari didn't notice the wince in Anzu's step as he called out to the other half of his soul. Nor her quick, quizzical look back to his concentrating face.

_:--Yuugi?!:_ the mindvoice was loud, as if the Yami was strained mentally, angry, or nervous. Yuugi winced at the unexpected 'volume'.

_Where are you?_ he asked.

_:If you're around, then you should be coming here.:_

Violet eyes glanced up at the witch heading the pack with her demanding steps up a (now) pivoting staircase.

_Probably. I can sense the emotional strain of the woman guiding us . . . has anything bad happened while I was away?_

_:Well . . .:_ The darker half seemed slightly hesitant._ : . . . not to **her** I suppose . . . I honestly do not understand what has her so riled up.:_

Yuugi swallowed.

_. . . Why am I getting the feeling you're not telling me everything, Yami?_

There was no immediate reply.

"Candy corn!" came a woman's voice sounding crispily.

"OOOH! Where?!" Jou said immediately. He was ignored for the most part.

Honda dove back as a stone gargoyle twitched, and finally walked aside of a narrow doorway. Bewildered, the brunette boy stared at the doorway with wide eyes.

Lupin smiled kindly, and offered a hand to the boy, which he took while remaining with an absent look.

Anzu sighed and shook her head exasperatedly.

"Come along!" the woman professor snapped to the rest of the group. She whirled around in a flurry of emerald-green velvet robes and disappeared through the darkened doorway with an ominous air of morbid insight to come.

Lupin's head was raised and his eyes glancing down over his nose when he exchanged an identical look of anticipation with Yuugi.

They stepped through the doorway side-by-side.

Yuugi craned his neck to examine the environment of a spiraling staircase. The lighting was dimmed compared with the outside corridor in which they had been just walking, and rather than the cool green from before, the staircase had walls painted a deep glossy red. The candles that burned down twirls of iron, fastened to the sides, reflected in the paint as gently glowing, shapeless orbs, and Yuugi found himself oddly transfixed at the manifestations.

He frowned. Whatever his darkness was elusively hiding from his probing mind had him worried. Yami's emotions could not be hidden, even as the King of Games, from his hikari, and those emotions were enough to put anyone on edge. Confusion, anger, dread, and a slight sense of revulsion.

Yuugi, lost in thought, absently wiped his nose with a finger and stared at his shoes.

Even Honda and Jou had been successfully shushed as they climbed up the carpeted stairs, a shade darker than the walls. The only sounds noticeable through the group were the hasty shuffling of feet over the steps, and somehow, unsettled breaths that were slightly gasping--not from overexertion, but from nervousness.

The silence was deafening. It elevated the tension between them like the tightening of a rubber band . . . so close to snapping.

Another door opened at the transfiguration professor's touch; Yuugi's head swerved up in a flurry of oddly-shaped hair. He stepped into the room.

Faces turned toward him with stony attention, their lips set into thin lines and foreheads wrinkled in thought and a wispy sense of vulnerability. He wouldn't have noticed the last feature if he had not sensed it already in his own face—and had it not been on the very tip of his consciousness.

The room was warmly lit and circular in shape; almost comforting, unlike the mood from his last visit. He swallowed, feeling a sudden chill despite the nearby braziers, unburdened by any sense of coolness in the room.

Yami was oddly silent.

Yuugi mentally sent out to him, not gaining any more reassurance in the few moments he had spent in Headmaster Dumbledore's office. _Yami, what . . . ?_

_:Hikari . . .:_

The thought crept up to him with another empty chill. He disregarded the movements of nervousness behind him, the complete stillness as they forgot to breathe, and a quick intake of breath that was as close to a gasp as Anzu would ever allow herself.

He turned, dreading, and came upon pale, violet eyes. Violent souls, twisted behind a finely chiseled face that he knew all to well.

The man smirked.

"Ah, so the little pharaoh graces us with his presence at last." He tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowing and picked himself from leaning on a sturdy mahoghany desk. The smirk deepened at Yuugi's shocked expression.

To give himself credit, Yuugi would have considered himself terrified for a split moment. Somehow, he gained control of himself with a mere blink and schooled his expression into Yami's impenetrable coldness.

"Malik, what are you doing here?"

The man tilted his head back lazily. A smile still quirked his lips; a clever one that warranted attention. So many had suffered from that smile, and beyond that smile . . .

_Let us hope that a darkness of his own will not rise again._ Yuugi wished silently to himself. His arms hung stiffly.

"Hmm, well I would claim many positions, many purposes. I don't really feel like repeating myself."

Yuugi's head jerked to an unreadable headmaster.

"Mr. Ishtar, it appears, is here to substitute temporarily for Ms. Ishtar, who was hired for the place of Ancient Runes professor." Dumbledore said gravely. "He has kindly appeared without hesitation."

Large purple eyes turned back to the unexpected visitor.

"My sister is on her honeymoon."

"Isis couldn't be the only reason you're here." Yami spoke up from the shadows. His glare was pure venom toward the bleach-blonde Egyptian.

Malik laughed with the full force of his smooth, deep voice bubbling up from his throat.

"Another point for the pharaoh!" he cackled.

"Why are you here, then?" Yuugi interjected.

_You've disappeared for the past_ three years _. . . why are you here, Malik?_

It was a question on the minds of everyone aware in that room. Lupin and Dumbledore tried to mask their concern with impassiveness, glancing at each other with confusion dug deep.

They watched as Malik was taken aback by the question, and his smile slowly faded and closed, his eyelashes brushing each other. It was a sort of question that he should have anticipated, but somehow could not immediately piece together a worthy explanation in regards to it. The sharp lie he had subconsciously created for that question died in his throat before it even started. The thought scattered like the shattered remains of a glass vase dropped on a tile floor.

He bowed his head, shielding the sudden pained look that crossed his face from the prying onlookers.

Such a change as this was so immediate that Yuugi felt his stomach tighten unsurely. Yet it was an inquiry that needed to be intoned, and he held the suspicion and his head high as he faced him. Even crossed his arms for good measure, as the neatly pressed sleeves of his suit rubbed roughly on his wrists.

He hadn't seen Malik for three years.

After the Battle City debacle, the first thing Yuugi and his Yami vowed was to keep an eye on Malik Ishtar. It was something set by default through the treachery they and their friends had endured throughout the tournament

The boy, the empty shell, seemed particularly broken and distant afterward. His eyes held a sort of mistiness deep in it's shadows, in the hollows of nothing more than a boy who had truly lost himself. His yami had risen inside of him at a very young age, and he had grown so accustomed to it's presence that in a sense, he _was_ his yami.

Yuugi remembered that haunting look—he would always remember it, etched in his memory.

Anzu had later explained that Yuugi himself had reflected that same preoccupation of distance from reality, when his yami had almost killed Seto Kaiba. However, even weeks after the initial loss, Malik was still unexplainably lost inside of himself. He functioned; ate and slept, but was not truly living in a sense that he hadn't spoken a word to anyone.

Yuugi had come to check on the hikari one day, when Isis was off on an expedition, bringing along an old friend Ryou Bakura because they were heading out to tea. He found it almost inhumane of Malik's older, scholarly sister to leave him alone like she did so completely, but it was simply Isis' way of dealing with stressful situations. She just completely cut off from him. As the two of them were politely let inside the Ishtar apartment that gorgeous Wednesday afternoon, Malik said nothing. He didn't even look at them as they walked through the doorway.

The blonde had stayed comatose and walking despite Yuugi's questioning, refusing to make eye contact as he nervously sat on a decorative blue couch, which was of a sort of furniture that held only a distant beauty and no sense of comfort. The boy was dressed in faded jeans and a shirt that was mis-buttoned one down.

_'Are you eating?'_ Yuugi had tried, _'/Are you bored?/'_. _'/You know to come to us if you're having any problems . . . right?'_.

He had remained silent, head bowed with uncombed hair blocking a view of his eyes.

Yuugi remembered clearly, staring at Malik, quite near to tears at this rapid change in the boy. Guilt had swept over him like low tide and it was all he could do to swallow the lump in his throat, and it was becoming nearly painful.

Then Ryou shifted next to him.

The shyest boy, the strongest boy behind hesitant countenance, who had overcome so much more than Yuugi could have ever dared. He still lived with a yami who would stop at nothing to achieve his own means, and Ryou was much to shy to gain much companionship besides his uncaring darker side. Here he was, staring at Malik with something akin to companionship that he had never expressed before, a feeling of understanding.

It was quite possibly the most unexpected gesture Yuugi could have ever predicted.

Ryou walked forward and sat on his haunches in front of the distant blonde, staring. Oddly enough, in close proximity, there was a change in the broken boy.

Malik looked up, focusing on the pale boy's face.

With delicate aristocratic fingers, Ryou reached out, brushing unruly blonde hair from the boys' focusing eyes. A tender gesture.

_'Are you alright?'_ for once, Ryou's quiet voice had not faltered.

Malik's eyes had grown large and his facial expression became very precarious. Suddenly, he melted.

'_ . . . **No** . . . _'

And Malik Ishtar had fallen, sobbing into Ryou's arms while the ordinarily shy boy had held him and comforted him as if he were a lost child. It was as if Yuugi never existed. For them, they were only aware of each other.

So such the events played out within the next few months. Malik would only speak to Ryou, and Ryou would only speak of the conversations with Malik. Yuugi was confused, but aware that it was good enough that the eccentric Egyptian had at least begun talking again. Vaguely, he wondered as Yami was certain about, that because Ryou held evilness within his delicate shell, the influence of Yami Bakura on the preoccupied Malik was not the best of situations. However, there was no conspiracy, just understanding between the two of them. Yami Bakura was never involved. To them, it was Ryou and Malik; the first friends either of them knew.

Then, Ryou Bakura had disappeared one day. Kidnapped, murdered, it was difficult to say.

Yuugi and the others grieved for his loss, although they all held the hope that Ryou wasn't dead or otherwise lost to them forever. Malik on the other hand, after receiving the news, had surrendered even further into himself than he had when his yami had been cast away.

They had done everything they could to bring him out again, to see him smile again. Nothing helped.

And then Malik himself had disappeared one night; the only evidence of his departure was an absent coat and a breeze-filled pair of curtains in his lofty bedroom. His once-prized motorcycle had been left untouched.

Yuugi went over his last experiences with Malik in his head rapidly as he stared at the now-frowning boy . . . no, _man_, rather. Here he was, as he had been, a conceited, mysterious bastard without manners or emotions. Or at least, he tried to be.

"Well?" Yuugi said finally, after seconds of silence.

Malik's eyes flashed.

"I don't believe that is any of your business." He hissed, and rapidly turned his head to the headmaster.

Dumbledore looked at them both with a warning glance. Still, he went on as if nothing of any importance had gone between the two of them. He coughed, and smiled faintly.

"I am terribly sorry if this meeting is inconvenient, but I'm afraid the ceremonies must take place as soon as possible." The old man explained, stroking his beard thoughtfully "I assume you have brought the items?"

"Of course." Malik spoke though a haze of self-assuredness.

Yami and Yuugi exchanged looks.

Pulling out three particular gold items, Malik stared at them with something akin to dislike. Scales. Ankh. Rod.

"What are they doing here?!" Honda cried out.

Yami spoke up.

"It is time . . . to discover the true owners of the items."

Jou frowned.

"I thought we went through that already--"

"No," Yami suddenly felt the weight of his millenia behind his voice "not really."

Anzu, Jou, and Honda looked at each other dubiously.

It was the female of the group who spoke up.

"So . . . why are we here?"

* * *

**Shinigami** – I love how you're very excited about it all. Truly, I did take your suggestions to heart! (_coughs and looks at mongrel chappie_) Heehee!

**crystal-chan** – David Bowie is t3h kewlest! lol I love that song so much still. I'm glad you like the touch—I just hope I remember to put in the song every time!

**Tramontana Keeper** - Heehee, Malik with explinations is always better though, right? At least I hope so! (_wink_) I'm really glad people still like this . . . I've been working on it so long.

**onlyHAUNTED** – Update again! Woo! I hope you like this chapter as much as the last, even though it got REALLY corny at the end. Meh . . . so you've seen hellsing? (_grins_) Mmm, Alucard . . .

**The Inspector** – Waiiiiii (_huggles_) Ah, I know what you mean . . . my other fic is TOTALLY R/B, and I still won't usually give a fic the time of day in the YGO section unless it's R/B. However, I might just be doing something a little bit different this time . . . and it's going to be very odd and different, I'll assure you. I really really hope this hasn't scared you away! (_nervous look_) I'll do anything to keep you enjoying this fic.

**RBMIfan **– Wow! Thank you so much!!! That really made me feel good : ) Sorry about the OOC-ness in this chapter, as far as Malik is concerned. But I had to put in something weird!!! What can I say, lol Hope you're still there . . . ouch. Yeah, definitely did not have a soon update o.o

**Windswift** – Yaay! Sense is good : ) Hahahahahaha, yeah, boys are so weird. I don't know what to do with them anymore . . . (_sigh_). Dun dun dunnnn, so much intrigue, I can't explain it all at once. You'll have to read more (_winkwinknudgenudge_).

**Kina-chan** – You called it my dear! Mmm, such loveliness and fluffiness in store . . . (_cackles_)

**Starring Lady G** – YES FOR SPIFFILICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!! Coolest un-word EVAR. 3 Spiffilicious . . . woooooo!!! Heehee : ) Thanks!

**Usagi Yuy1** – I'm glad everyone is liking Alucard. I just thought he was such an awesome character . . . haha, that's me, stealing everyone's characters. What can I say? They're just too cool. Hungry for Malik? More Malik served!

**IMPROVED Uber Rei Model 06** – haha, you remind me so much of myself : ) Sorry about the wait . . . damn uber-horrible case of writer's block. Eep!

**InsanityRoseSparkles** – Ooh! Questions questions . . . hmm possibly and yes (_wink_) Yaay! I'm glad I'm getting the idea of Malik right . . . I have issues with that sometimes.

Sugaricing – Well, I'll just have to get Seto into there sometime, hmm? (_wink_) I wuv wuvving Ryou, heehee!

**Bakagami101 **– (_grin_) (_huggles_) I'm glad you like it! And I'm glad you don't think it's too bizarre . . . heehee!

* * *

_AN_ - Eh, not the best chapter I've ever completed. I used very few metaphors, and more than anything, this is a lot of high-carb, literary filler. This is the worst case of writers block I have ever had in my life, so naturally, things are bound to be a bit spotty. I also don't have a beta, so I'm just winging it here.

Is this story becoming overly dramatic? I really can't tell. It just seems to me like . . . a lot of is happening. lol oh well . . .

Otherwise:

I love rain. Boys are stupid . My life is crazy.

giggle


End file.
